27 CFR 24.92 - Products in customs custody.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Products in customs... Wine Or Spirits on Wine Premises § 24.92 Products in customs custody. Products in customs custody may... products in customs custody are kept separate from wine and spirits on bonded wine premises. (Sec. 201, Pub...

Improving customer satisfaction

OpenAIRE

Wei, Yu

2011-01-01

Today, the competition among enterprises is growing in intensity and organizations of all types and sizes have increasingly come to understand the importance of customer satisfaction and good services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the present level of customer satisfaction with language training institutes and find out any possible areas of improvement. This thesis will discuss and analyze the factors that influence the customer’s level of satisfaction and assist the case compa...

Mass customization and build to order production - in manufacturing networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svensson, Carsten

2003-01-01

in the manufacturing as information processing is accountable for an increasing portion of the value creation. In order to improve the information processing some manufacturers have applied product models, thereby giving the customer access to the manufactures knowledge base. This project will introduce solution......Mass Customization and Build to Order Production – In Manufacturing Networks Mass customization and globalization have radically changed the environment for manufacturers. A new context is emerging with intensified competition and accelerated technology development. In this environment evolution...... is not an option, but a necessity for survival. This leads to the question “what can manufacturing enterprises do to turn the development into their own advantage?” As competition intensifies customer are increasingly demanding sophisticated and adapted solutions. Conventional manufacturer are challenged...

Challenges in Improving Customer Focus in Small-Sized House-building Companies in Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos T. Formoso

2006-12-01

Full Text Available Some important changes in the business environment in several countries are forcing house-building companies to change their competitive strategies. This paper discusses a set of customer servicing practices, which have been adopted by small-sized house-building companies in Brazil that have been involved in quality management improvement programs, emphasizing customer satisfaction measurement. Such practices are referred to a model of the customer servicing process that integrates the main customer-interaction functions from product inception to building operation. Based on multiple case studies and also on a literature review, the main difficulties faced by this sector in terms of improving customer satisfaction are discussed and some improvement opportunities are pointed out.

Marketing research of organic agricultural products' customers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salai Suzana

2002-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of customers' marketing research is to acquire information about the way domestic customers behave towards organic agricultural products. This research focuses the overview of conditions and factors influencing customer behavior in nutrition processes in the EM and in Yugoslavia. The acquired information about changes and directions directly affect the possibilities of getting involved into supply processes as well as the 'transmission' of some directions in customer behavior. Anticipations based, on marketing research deal with changes on customers' level, in consumption, products and other competitors. The results of a part of problems concerning customer behavior in nutrition processes follow below, with an emphasis on organic agricultural products.

Customer empowerment in new product development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

C. Fuchs (Christoph); M. Schreier (Martin)

2012-01-01

textabstractCompanies have traditionally taken responsibility for deciding what products and product innovations are offered to customers. However, a growing number of companies are turning this relationship on its head by asking customers not only for help in creating new products, but also in

Making Product Customization Profitable

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Niels Henrik; Hvam, Lars; Haug, Anders

2010-01-01

The main result presented in this paper is the Framework for Product Family Master Plan. This framework supports the identification of a product architecture for companies that customize products and services. The framework has five coherent aspects, the market, product assortment, supply...

Developing food products in accordance with customer demands

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Juhl, Hans Jørn; Kristensen, Kai; Poulsen, Carsten Stig

1994-01-01

Development of food products is considered as a design problem. Through development of a theoretical model QFD is applied to integrate market information on customer satisfaction with information from a sensory analysis. The aim is to translate th information from these two datasets into design a...... quality and systematized in the most efficient manner. In the empirical part of the paper we analyze data on customer requirements in a LISRE setting in order to improve the understanding of the market....

Customized products and cloud service information system development research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hung Chien-Wen

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study presents a cloud service customized product information system to enable businesses to provide customized product marketing on the Internet to meet consumer demand for customized products. The cloud service of the information system development strategic framework proposed in this study contains three elements: (1 e-commerce services, (2 promotion type modules, and (3 cloud services customized promotional products. In this study, a mining cloud information system to detect customer behavior is proposed. The association rules from relational database design are utilized to mine consumer behavior to generate cross-selling proposals for customer products and marketing for a retailing mall in Taiwan. The study is composed of several parts, as follows. A market segment and application of association rules in data exploration techniques (Association Rule Mining and sequence-like exploration (Sequential Pattern Mining, efficient analysis of customers, consumer behavior, identification of candidates for promotional products, and using cloud service delivery and evaluation of targets to evaluate candidates for promotional products for production. However, in addition to cloud service customized promotional products, the quantity of promotional products sales varies for different customers. We strive to achieve increased customer loyalty and profits through the use of active cloud service customized promotional products.

Improving Customer Service in Elderly Care

OpenAIRE

Nielsen, Chris

2015-01-01

The elderly care sector is increasingly facing more competition and demanding customers. This leads to a growing pressure on elderly care home providers to find new and improved solutions that will enhance their level of customer service. The will ensure that the elderly service provider is remaining competitive in the elderly care service marketplace. The purpose of this thesis is to identify areas for improvements and propose implementable solutions for enhancing the elderly care custom...

Customer/User Workshops in Product development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brandt, Eva; Binder, Thomas

1997-01-01

In a recent product development project, we have taken part in establishing and organising a series of workshops with a group of customers/users of a future product line through out the development project. The workshops is a kind of informal meetingplace for engineering, marketing, customers...... and discuss experiences with this kind of collaborative fora. We have tried to demonstrate that having an on-going dialogue with users/customers also during detailed design in not only a means to keep 'the voive of the customer alive'. We have found that the workshops have an important impact on securing...

Improving Customer Satisfaction: A People CMM Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-11

Work Environment Customer Relationship Management Program 19 Improving Customer Satisfaction: A People CMM Perspective P. Buttles, S. McGraw, D...Professional in 2009 and Customer Care Manager in July 2006. He has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a bachelor of science...conferences throughout the United States and Europe. He has as a bachelor of science degree in management . 4 Improving Customer Satisfaction: A

Towards product customization : An integrated order fulfillment system

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zhang, L.; Lee, C.K.M.; Xu, Q.

To stay competitive, manufacturing companies nowadays pursue product customization: and configure-to-order(CTO) has been recognized as an ideal business model to implement product customization. Due to the complexities resulting from the large number of customized products, an increased attention

I want products my own way, but which way? The effects of different product categories and cues on customer responses to Web-based customizations.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Chia-Chi; Chen, Hui-Yun

2009-02-01

Mass customization is a strategy that has been adopted by companies to tailor their products in order to match customer needs more precisely. Therefore, to fully capture the value of mass customization, it is crucial to explore how customers react to mass customization. In previous studies, an implied premise has been that consumers are keen to embrace customized products, and this assumption has also been treated by firms as a prerequisite for successful mass customization strategies. However, an undesirable complexity may result from difficult configuration processes that may intimidate and confuse some customers. Hence, this study explores strategies that marketers can employ to facilitate the customization process. Specifically, this study investigates how to enhance customer satisfaction and purchase decision toward customized products by providing cues compatible with the product category. It is hypothesized that for search products, customers rely more on intrinsic cues when making configuration decisions. On the other hand, for experience products, customers perceive extrinsic cues to be more valuable in assisting them to make configuration decisions. The results suggest that consumers tend to respond more favorably toward customized search products when intrinsic cues are provided than when extrinsic or irrelevant ones are provided. In contrast, when customizing experience products, customers tend to depend more on extrinsic cues than on intrinsic or irrelevant ones.

Maximizing Product Innovation through Adaptive Application of User-Centered Methods for Defining Customer Value

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tonje Overvik Olsen

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Establishing deep understanding of customers is a prerequisite to improve success rates of innovations under today’s transient business conditions. This paper summarizes methods and tools to increase customer understanding in new product development. A case study of developing an office chair was conducted, utilizing four such methods (web based survey, interview, observation and workshops to provide directions for later application. Results indicate that methods revealing emotionally-related customer information (workshops and observation are resource-intensive and provide less amount of information directly applicable to the product development team. The opposite is the case for methods providing more functionally-related information (web based survey and interview. The overall conclusion is that the latter methods are more suitable for product improvements, while the former may provide valuable information for creating more differentiated products.

Product customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lueg, Rainer

2015-01-01

This case study deals with the extension, customization, and profitability of two new product lines of a bicycle manufacturer. It can serve both as a discussion basis in class as well as an exam for advanced Master students in management, marketing, and ccounting. The case illustrates how variance...... application of financial analysis can lead to dysfunctional decisions that run counter to a company’s business model....

Transforming Multidisciplinary Customer Requirements to Product Design Specifications

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Xiao-Jie; Ding, Guo-Fu; Qin, Sheng-Feng; Li, Rong; Yan, Kai-Yin; Xiao, Shou-Ne; Yang, Guang-Wu

2017-09-01

With the increasing of complexity of complex mechatronic products, it is necessary to involve multidisciplinary design teams, thus, the traditional customer requirements modeling for a single discipline team becomes difficult to be applied in a multidisciplinary team and project since team members with various disciplinary backgrounds may have different interpretations of the customers' requirements. A new synthesized multidisciplinary customer requirements modeling method is provided for obtaining and describing the common understanding of customer requirements (CRs) and more importantly transferring them into a detailed and accurate product design specifications (PDS) to interact with different team members effectively. A case study of designing a high speed train verifies the rationality and feasibility of the proposed multidisciplinary requirement modeling method for complex mechatronic product development. This proposed research offersthe instruction to realize the customer-driven personalized customization of complex mechatronic product.

Investigation into some characteristics of the mass-customized production paradigm

Science.gov (United States)

Tapper, Jerome; Sundar, Pratap S.; Kamarthi, Sagar V.

2000-10-01

In recent times, while markets are reaching their saturation limits and customers are becoming more demanding, a paradigm shift has been taking place from mass production to mass- customized production (MCP). The concept of mass customization (MC) focuses on satisfying a customer's unique needs with the help of new technologies such as Internet, digital product realization, and re-configurable production facilities. In MC the needs of an individual customer are translated into design, accordingly produced, and delivered to the customer. In this research three hypothesis related to MCP are investigated by the data/information collected from ten companies, which are engaged in MCP. These three hypothesis are (1) mass-customized production systems can be classified into make-to-stock MCP, assemble-to-order MCP, make-to-order MCP, engineer-to-order MC, and develop-to-order MCP, (2) in mass-customized production systems the process of customization eliminates customer sacrifice, and (3) mass-customized production systems can deliver products at mass-production cost. The preliminary study indicates that while the first hypothesis is valid, MCP companies rarely fulfill what is stated in the other two hypotheses.

Risk identification and evaluation of customer collaboration in product development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuefeng Zhang

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify risk factors that caused by customer collaboration in new product development systematically, and propose an approach to judge which risk factors are critical and catch substantial attention. Design/methodology/approach: This study identifies risk factors according to the results of case studies of enterprises in china. On this basis, an improved rough number approach is put forward to evaluate the importance of risk factors. Findings: Firstly, classify risk factors into three aspects. Then, present a risk factor set, which include thirty-seven risk factors. At last, determine which risk factors are critical by using an improved rough number approach. Originality/value: Considering there are few researches studying comprehensive risk factors of customer collaboration and assessing them, this paper explores a risk factor set of customer collaboration in product development stage, and proposes a novel approach, which can help to solve the problem of subjective, vague and lack of prior information of evaluation, to evaluate risk factors.

USER REQUIREMENTS CUSTOMIZATION AND ATTRACTIVE QUALITY CREATION FOR DESIGN IMPROVEMENT ATTRIBUTES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ismail Wilson Taifa

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper was to customize user requirements and quality creation for design improvement of furniture. The major purpose has been achieved with the use of Quality Function Deployment technique and Kano Model. The study involved 564 students from 3 engineering colleges. Extensive user requirements were identified with the help of Questionnaires. The use of House of Quality, Kano Model and Pareto Diagram helped in prioritizing all important features which are needed in customizing user requirements. The prioritized requirements include ergonomic design, desk adjustability, comfortability, product corners (sharp corners and latest material. All these factors both got high relative and absolute weight. Therefore, more engineering efforts need to be directed towards these requirements for achieving user customization for design improvement. The developed House of Quality with the help of Kano Model results has proved to be a good tool in customizing user requirements.

Achieving Customer Satisfaction through Integrated Products and Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Raja, Jawwad; Bourne, Dorota; Goffin, Keith

2013-01-01

Complex products such as manufacturing equipment have always needed maintenance and repair services. Increasingly, leading manufacturers are integrating products and services to generate increased revenues and achieve customer satisfaction. Designing integrated products and services requires...... a different approach to new product development and a clear understanding of how customers perceive the value they obtain from actual usage of products and services—so-called value-in-use. However, there is a lack of research on integrated products and services and how they impact customer satisfaction....... An exploratory study was undertaken to understand customers' views on integrated products and services and the value-in-use derived from such offerings. As value-in-use and its impacts are complicated concepts, a technique from psychology—Repertory Grid Technique—was used to gather data in 33 interviews...

Product manufacturing, quality, and reliability initiatives to maintain a competitive advantage and meet customer expectations in the semiconductor industry

Science.gov (United States)

Capps, Gregory

Semiconductor products are manufactured and consumed across the world. The semiconductor industry is constantly striving to manufacture products with greater performance, improved efficiency, less energy consumption, smaller feature sizes, thinner gate oxides, and faster speeds. Customers have pushed towards zero defects and require a more reliable, higher quality product than ever before. Manufacturers are required to improve yields, reduce operating costs, and increase revenue to maintain a competitive advantage. Opportunities exist for integrated circuit (IC) customers and manufacturers to work together and independently to reduce costs, eliminate waste, reduce defects, reduce warranty returns, and improve quality. This project focuses on electrical over-stress (EOS) and re-test okay (RTOK), two top failure return mechanisms, which both make great defect reduction opportunities in customer-manufacturer relationship. Proactive continuous improvement initiatives and methodologies are addressed with emphasis on product life cycle, manufacturing processes, test, statistical process control (SPC), industry best practices, customer education, and customer-manufacturer interaction.

Supplier Value of Customer-Initiated Product Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sommer, Anita Friis; Dukovska-Popovska, Iskra; Steger-Jensen, Kenn

2013-01-01

Increased market demand and shortened product life cycles generate industrial customer requests for collaborative product development. Manufacture-to-stock suppliers struggle to manage the request process to obtain profitability. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if request management...... is profitable for suppliers, and to examine possible relations between profitability of requests and the requesting customer. Through a case study, request management is identified as a profitable process due to long-term accumulated profit from developed products. Request profitability is not identified...... as related to profitability or turnover of existing customers, and thus profitability of requests cannot be predicted based on these customer data. Results from a coupled interview study indicate that request management has a large potential for future exploitation, and an outline of the supplier value...

Research on the time optimization model algorithm of Customer Collaborative Product Innovation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guodong Yu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Purpose: To improve the efficiency of information sharing among the innovation agents of customer collaborative product innovation and shorten the product design cycle, an improved genetic annealing algorithm of the time optimization was presented. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the analysis of the objective relationship between the design tasks, the paper takes job shop problems for machining model and proposes the improved genetic algorithm to solve the problems, which is based on the niche technology and thus a better product collaborative innovation design time schedule is got to improve the efficiency. Finally, through the collaborative innovation design of a certain type of mobile phone, the proposed model and method were verified to be correct and effective. Findings and Originality/value: An algorithm with obvious advantages in terms of searching capability and optimization efficiency of customer collaborative product innovation was proposed. According to the defects of the traditional genetic annealing algorithm, the niche genetic annealing algorithm was presented. Firstly, it avoided the effective gene deletions at the early search stage and guaranteed the diversity of solution; Secondly, adaptive double point crossover and swap mutation strategy were introduced to overcome the defects of long solving process and easily converging local minimum value due to the fixed crossover and mutation probability; Thirdly, elite reserved strategy was imported that optimal solution missing was avoided effectively and evolution speed was accelerated. Originality/value: Firstly, the improved genetic simulated annealing algorithm overcomes some defects such as effective gene easily lost in early search. It is helpful to shorten the calculation process and improve the accuracy of the convergence value. Moreover, it speeds up the evolution and ensures the reliability of the optimal solution. Meanwhile, it has obvious advantages in efficiency of

Innovations in Mechatronic Products and Mass Customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Habib, Tufail; Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn; Nielsen, Kjeld

2011-01-01

as a product type and new inventions have resulted in drastic changes in design and development of mechatronic products. Conventional mechanical systems are enhanced by mechatronic systems. In this paper, the particular structure and properties of mechatronic products compared to conventional mechanical......Mass Customization (MC) has been recognized as a successful strategy in the design and development of products tailored to customer needs. Global competition demands new products with added functionalities, as in the case of mechatronic products. These products are becoming more and more important...

Perceived quality, perceived risk and customer trust affecting customer loyalty of environmentally friendly electronics products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lalinthorn Marakanon

2017-01-01

Full Text Available At present, industrial business competition causes producers to be aware of quality, price, and variety in developing new products to meet the consumers' needs. This research reviewed the literature on green marketing and proposes a new conceptual framework of customer loyalty. It uses four constructs—perceived quality, perceived risk, customer trust, and customer loyalty—in the context of environmentally friendly electronics products in Thailand. This research employed an empirical study using the questionnaire survey method to verify the hypotheses. Data were obtained from 420 consumers who bought and used environmentally friendly electronic products, particularly mobile phones, computers, and laptops using a purposive sampling method. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA and structural equation modeling (SEM. The results showed that perceived risk and customer trust had a direct effect on customer loyalty while perceived quality had an indirect effect on customer loyalty via customer trust. Furthermore, perceived quality had direct effects on perceived risk and customer trust. The results from the final SEM model were used to confirm the proposed relationships among the variables.

The impact of the customer relationship management on organizational productivity, customer trust and satisfaction by using the structural equation model: A study in the Iranian hospitals.

Science.gov (United States)

Yaghoubi, Maryam; Asgari, Hamed; Javadi, Marzieh

2017-01-01

One of the challenges in the fiercely competitive space of health organizations is responding to customers and building trust and satisfaction in them in the shortest time, with best quality and highest productivity. Hence the aim of this study is to survey the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) on organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust in selected hospitals of Isfahan (in Iran). This study is a correlation descriptive research. Study population was the nurses in selected hospitals of Isfahan and the sampling has been conducted using stratified random method. Data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire of CRM and its effects (organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust) which its validity and reliability has been confirmed by researchers. Structural equation method was used to determine the impact of variables. Data analysis method was structural equation modeling and the software used was SPSS version 16 (IBM, SPSS, 2007 Microsoft Corp., Bristol, UK) and AMOS version 18 (IBM, SPSS, 2010 Microsoft Corp, Bristol, UK). Among the dimensions of CRM, diversification had the highest impact (0.83) and customer acquisition had the lowest (0.57) CRM, had the lowest impact on productivity (0.59) and the highest effect on customer satisfaction (0.83). For the implementation of CRM, it is necessary that the studied hospitals improve strategies of acquiring information about new customers, attracting new customers and keeping them and communication with patients outside the hospital and improve the system of measuring patient satisfaction and loyalty.

Relationship on the Relational Benefit Effect of Oil Products on Customer Satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jing Muxue

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In order to find out the relationship of relational benefit effect of oil products on customer satisfaction, the local fractional algorithm is proposed in this paper for data analysis. It is investigated the adjustment effect of alternative brand competitiveness and customer characteristics to this mechanism. The results show that the proposed algorithm can thus improve overall system performance substantially.

CUSTOMER SERVICES AND PRODUCT QUALITY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

NEAMŢU Liviu

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Objective level of product is a combination of material elements. They are supplemented by satisfying highly heterogeneous and complex motivations, representing highly diverse subjective functions associated to product until individualization for each type of consumption. Thus it observes highly surprising developments of subjective function associated with a product and which determines in the consumer's opinion the quality level of the product. The present study examines the role of associated services covering the subjective function of the product in view of the fact that the utility or subjective function is dependent on elements such as style, fashion and fads. Consumers will no longer accept products with average quality of related services. For a company that wants to stay in the market and achieve profitability, the only solution is moving towards a complete product package type goods-services. Associated services are thus an indicator of quality and the best customer loyalty insurance policy, there is a close relationship between the quality of services provided by a firm, customer satisfaction and company profitability.

Customer complaints as a source of customer-focused process improvement: A constructive case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Uusitalo, K.,

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Process-based thinking commonly focuses on enhancing the efficiency of processes, while it is often criticized for not paying enough attention to the customer. This paper argues that customer complaint information can be used as a basis for customer-focused process improvement. Thus, it is not enough to make the complaining customer satisfied, but the complaint information should also feed back to the actual processes where the fault causing the complaint arose and where it can be removed. The empirical component of the study includes the development of a novel construction to utilize customer complaints for process improvements, which was implemented in a large Finnish enterprise operating in the wholesale logistics environment. The results show benefits at both operational and strategic levels.

The impact of the customer relationship management on organizational productivity, customer trust and satisfaction by using the structural equation model: A study in the Iranian hospitals

Science.gov (United States)

Yaghoubi, Maryam; Asgari, Hamed; Javadi, Marzieh

2017-01-01

Context: One of the challenges in the fiercely competitive space of health organizations is responding to customers and building trust and satisfaction in them in the shortest time, with best quality and highest productivity. Hence the aim of this study is to survey the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) on organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust in selected hospitals of Isfahan (in Iran). Materials and Methods: This study is a correlation descriptive research. Study population was the nurses in selected hospitals of Isfahan and the sampling has been conducted using stratified random method. Data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire of CRM and its effects (organizational productivity, customer loyalty, satisfaction and trust) which its validity and reliability has been confirmed by researchers. Structural equation method was used to determine the impact of variables. Data analysis method was structural equation modeling and the software used was SPSS version 16 (IBM, SPSS, 2007 Microsoft Corp., Bristol, UK) and AMOS version 18 (IBM, SPSS, 2010 Microsoft Corp, Bristol, UK). Results: Among the dimensions of CRM, diversification had the highest impact (0.83) and customer acquisition had the lowest (0.57) CRM, had the lowest impact on productivity (0.59) and the highest effect on customer satisfaction (0.83). Conclusions: For the implementation of CRM, it is necessary that the studied hospitals improve strategies of acquiring information about new customers, attracting new customers and keeping them and communication with patients outside the hospital and improve the system of measuring patient satisfaction and loyalty. PMID:28546971

Customer Innovation Process Leadership

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lindgren, Peter; Jørgensen, Jacob Høj; Goduscheit, René Chester

2007-01-01

Innovation leadership has traditionally been focused on leading the companies' product development fast, cost effectively and with an optimal performance driven by technological inventions or by customers´ needs. To improve the efficiency of the product development process focus has been on diffe......Innovation leadership has traditionally been focused on leading the companies' product development fast, cost effectively and with an optimal performance driven by technological inventions or by customers´ needs. To improve the efficiency of the product development process focus has been...... on different types of organisational setup to the product development model and process. The globalization and enhanced competitive markets are however changing the innovation game and the challenge to innovation leadership Excellent product development innovation and leadership seems not any longer to enough...... another outlook to future innovation leadership - Customer Innovation Process Leadership - CIP-leadership. CIP-leadership moves the company's innovation process closer to the customer innovation process and discusses how companies can be involved and innovate in customers' future needs and lead...

Changing Information Management in Product-Service System PLM: Customer-Oriented Strategy

OpenAIRE

Smirnov , Alexander; Shilov , Nikolay; Oroszi , Andreas; Sinko , Mario; Krebs , Thorsten

2017-01-01

Part 11: Product, Service, Systems (PSS); International audience; Increasing competition and appearance of new information and communication technologies makes companies to introduce new production and marketing models. The paper shares the experiences of improving PLM information management at an automation equipment manufacturer caused by implementation of product-service systems and their customer-driven configuration. Though the research results are based on the analysis of one company, t...

Process Improvement: An Application in Special Steel Production Sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tansu TÜRKAN

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Customer requests are increasingly varied with the changing of the living conditions and developing technology. In this point, customers want to be met the demands which are good quality and suitable price quickly. The trend in today’s global competitive environment is to provide high quality, reasonably priced products and respond in the required time to customer demands. In this point, organizations should review their processes continuously and improve them. In this study begin with the general information about concept of process, process management and process improvement techniques. This paper continuous with an application in a steel production company which supplies product to the customers in the automotive industry that working with just in time philosophy. In this study different techniques for process improvement (Kaizen, Cause and Effect Diagram, Poka-Yoke, 8D, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis were used in combination.

Improving The Performance of Customer Loyalty of Online Ticketing in Indonesia's Showbiz Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Dachyar, M.; Athory, E. S.

2015-06-01

Currently the entertainment industry is adopting online ticketing for supporting business from main products to profitability improvement. E-loyalty needs to be examined because are deals with less loyal customer characteristic. The sample are 249 customers whom have purchased for tickets online at least once. Data was gathered by questionnaires and analyzed by Path Analysis and Importance - Performance Analysis. The findings of the research indicate that satisfaction has the strongest relationship to e-loyalty. This study provides four improvement alternatives as a form of new business development strategy for showbiz industry in Indonesia.

Group decision support system for customer-driven product design

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Zhihang; Chen, Hang; Chen, Kuen; Che, Ada

2000-10-01

This paper describes the work on the development of a group decision support system for customer driven product design. The customer driven is to develop products, which meet all customer requirements in whole life cycle of products. A process model of decision during product primary design is proposed to formulate the structured, semi-structured and unstructured decision problems. The framework for the decision support system is presented that integrated both advances in the group decision making and distributed artificial intelligent. The system consists of the product primary design tool kit and the collaborative platform with multi-agent structure. The collaborative platform of the system and the product primary design tool kit, including the VOC (Voice of Customer) tool, QFD (Quality Function Deployment) tool, the Conceptual design tool, Reliability analysis tool and the cost and profit forecasting tool, are indicated.

Customization: Ideal Varieties, Product Uniqueness and Price Competition

OpenAIRE

Oksana Loginova; X. Henry Wang

2009-01-01

We study customization in the Hotelling model with two firms. In addition to providing ideal varieties, the perceived uniqueness of a customized product contributes independently to consumer utility. We show that only when consumer preferences for uniqueness are high customization occurs in equilibrium.

Measuring and improving customer satisfaction with government services

Science.gov (United States)

Glen D. Alexander

1995-01-01

Two years ago, Ohio State Park developed a methodology of measuring customer satisfaction, to gauge the effectiveness of our customer service. What follows is a discussion of our installation of systems to measure and improve customer satisfaction, the interpretation of the data, and the positive results we have enjoyed.

Upgradable Software Product Customization by Code Query

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vaucouleur, Sebastien

The professional press on enterprise systems warns its readers: Costly., A return on investment killer. , Be prepared!. What can create some much af- iction and turmoil in an otherwise very successful industry? Come and meet the dreadful upgrade problem. Enterprise systems are prime examples...... of a subset of software systems that we call software products: software that needs special support for customization. Through customization, external companies can modify part of the original product to better t the needs of a niche market. Upon the release of a new version of the original software product...

Improving Customer Satisfaction in an R and D Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, Anita; Liou, Y. H. Andrew

1998-01-01

Satisfying customer needs is critical to the sustained competitive advantage of service suppliers. It is therefore important to understand the types of customer needs which, if fulfilled or exceeded, add value and contribute to overall customer satisfaction. This study identifies the needs of various research and development (R&D) customers who contract for engineering and design support services. The Quality Function Deployment (QFD) process was used to organize and translate each customer need into performance measures that, if implemented, can improve customer satisfaction. This study also provides specific performance measures that will more accurately guide the efforts of the engineering supplier. These organizations can either implement the QFD methodology presented herein or extract a few performance measures that are specific to the quality dimensions in need of improvement. Listening to 'what' customers talk about is a good first start.

What do customers want from improved residential electricity services? Evidence from a choice experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huh, Sung-Yoon; Woo, JongRoul; Lim, Sesil; Lee, Yong-Gil; Kim, Chang Seob

2015-01-01

Improvements in customer satisfaction as well as product/service quality represent a common objective of all businesses, and electricity services are no exception. Using choice experiments and a mixed logit model, this study quantitatively analyzes customers' preferences and their marginal willingness to pay for improved residential electricity services. The study provides an ex ante evaluation of customers' acceptance of hypothetical electricity services. According to the results, customers consider the electricity bill and the electricity mix as the two most important attributes when choosing their electricity services. Customers are willing to pay 2.2% more in the average electricity bill (an additional monthly electricity bill of KRW 1,064; USD 0.96) for a significant increase in the share of renewable energy, which is far less than the actual cost of achieving this renewable target. Therefore, it is better to maintain the current electricity mix in principle, and the renewable share should be gradually expanded instead of making a sudden change in the electricity mix. In addition, customers are willing to pay KRW 6,793 (USD 6.15) more to reduce blackouts once in a year and KRW 64/year (USD 0.06/year) to reduce a minute of each blackout. -- Highlights: •Customers' preferences for improved residential electricity services are analyzed. •Empirical setting is a sample of residents in South Korea. •The electricity bills and electricity mix are important to customers. •Increase in electricity bill of different electricity mix is considered

Customer Dissatisfaction Index and its Improvement Costs

Science.gov (United States)

Lvovs, Aleksandrs; Mutule, Anna

2010-01-01

The paper gives description of customer dissatisfaction index (CDI) that can be used as reliability level characterizing factor. The factor is directly joined with customer satisfaction of power supply and can be used for control of reliability level of power supply for residential customers. CDI relations with other reliability indices are shown. Paper also gives a brief overview of legislation of Latvia in power industry that is the base for CDI introduction. Calculations of CDI improvement costs are performed in the paper too.

Improving productivity and quality of biodiesel from Chlorella vulgaris SDEC-3M through customized process designs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Qi, Feng; Pei, Haiyan; Ma, Guixia; Zhang, Shuo; Mu, Ruimin

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Responses of growth and lipid in SDEC-3M to N concentrations were described. • The high lipid accumulation and biomass production were coexisted in buffer period. • Shorting N-deficient culture stage could improve lipid productivity. • A scheme of optimal designs was suggested to improve lipid productivity. • Biodiesels were meet standards and their performances varied with N-deficient time. - Abstract: In this study, temporal variations of microalgae growth and lipid accumulation in response to different nitrogen concentrations in media were investigated and discussed in detail, using a mutant Chlorella vulgaris SDEC-3M as a model. The results show that a short-term of dramatic lipid accumulation and nonsignificant descent of biomass productivities can be concomitant in SDEC-3M during early N-deficient stage (buffer period). It was found that the maximum lipid productivities of 63.52 mg L"−"1 d"−"1 occurred after 24 h N-shift. It means that, obtained lipid productivity under two-stage strategy with 24 h N-deficient stage was approximately three times as high as the maximum one obtained under N-rich condition and the final one obtained during longer N-deficient culture. Batch culture mode, higher light intensity and light/dark cycle in cooperation with N-rich/N-deficient cycle were also suggested as feasible scheme to improve lipid productivity in large scale culture. Additionally, the fatty acid profiles analysis indirectly showed that the properties of biodiesel from SDEC-3M majorly satisfied biodiesel standards. The fuel performances varied with N-deficient culture time, meaning that better combustion performance, oxidation stability, and exhaust emissions level related to longer N-deficient stage, while the biodiesel produced form N-deficient would perform well under low temperature. The results mean that SDEC-3M-derived biodiesels with customized process designs have commercial potential in the aspects of productivity and quality.

The Impact of Product Quality, Service Quality, and Customer Loyalty Program perception on Retail Customer Attitude

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ricko Achmadi Putra

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This journal examines the relationship between perception of product quality, perception of service quality, perception of Customer Loyalty Program on retail customer behavior, and sales volumes of cement products. This study examines three different cement brands, namely cement XYZ with the largest market share, cement PQR which is the main competitor, as well as cement ABC, a newcomer cement brand which is strong enough to enter the Indonesian cement market. The research is focused on the building material retailers with 100 respondents. The data collection will be done by survey through direct interview by using questionnaires. The analysis of this research uses descriptive analysis, analysis by ANOVA and also inferential analysis by using Structural Equation Model (SEM. The results of this study indicate that from the factors that influence the attitudes of retail customers of the three variables tested, only one dominant factor which influences the attitude of retail customers, which is the perception of the product quality. The results of this research also show that the perception of product quality also affects sale volume significantly, the greater the perception of the quality of cement products, the greater the volume of sales generated by the retail customer.

Impact of Customer Relationship Management on Product Innovation Process

OpenAIRE

Li, Yelin; Thi, Thu Sang Nguyen

2012-01-01

In marketing, the common view is that customer relationships enhance innovativeness. Regularly it involves doing something new or different in response to market conditions. However, previous studies have not addressed how customer relationship management (CRM) plays its role in product innovation process. This thesis proposes and tests how key CRM activities influence and relate to each stage in product innovation process. The objective of this study is to test how customer relations managem...

A Research Review on the Key Technologies of Intelligent Design for Customized Products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shuyou Zhang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The development of technologies such as big data and cyber-physical systems (CPSs has increased the demand for product design. Product digital design involves completing the product design process using advanced digital technologies such as geometry modeling, kinematic and dynamic simulation, multi-disciplinary coupling, virtual assembly, virtual reality (VR, multi-objective optimization (MOO, and human-computer interaction. The key technologies of intelligent design for customized products include: a description and analysis of customer requirements (CRs, product family design (PFD for the customer base, configuration and modular design for customized products, variant design for customized products, and a knowledge push for product intelligent design. The development trends in intelligent design for customized products include big-data-driven intelligent design technology for customized products and customized design tools and applications. The proposed method is verified by the design of precision computer numerical control (CNC machine tools.

CUSTOMER VALUE NETWORK ANALYSIS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF CUSTOMER LIFE-TIME VALUE COMPUTATION

OpenAIRE

Monireh Hosseini; Amir Albadvi

2010-01-01

The constant changes in the world have exposed companies to a situation of tough competition. This situation, especially in e-commerce, complicates the decision-making process about target customers and the recommendation of products to them. On the one hand, understanding and measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV) is a critical factor for long-term success. On the other hand, the value network is a new concept that considers both tangible and intangible complex dynamic value exchanges b...

The decision optimization of product development by considering the customer demand saturation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qing-song Xing

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impacts of over meeting customer demands on the product development process, which is on the basis of the quantitative model of customer demands, development cost and time. Then propose the corresponding product development optimization decision. Design/methodology/approach: First of all, investigate to obtain the customer demand information, and then quantify customer demands weights by using variation coefficient method. Secondly, analyses the relationship between customer demands and product development time and cost based on the quality function deployment and establish corresponding mathematical model. On this basis, put forward the concept of customer demand saturation and optimization decision method of product development, and then apply it in the notebook development process of a company. Finally, when customer demand is saturated, it also needs to prove the consistency of strengthening satisfies customer demands and high attention degree customer demands, and the stability of customer demand saturation under different parameters. Findings: The development cost and the time will rise sharply when over meeting the customer demand. On the basis of considering the customer demand saturation, the relationship between customer demand and development time cost is quantified and balanced. And also there is basically consistent between the sequence of meeting customer demands and customer demands survey results. Originality/value: The paper proposes a model of customer demand saturation. It proves the correctness and effectiveness on the product development decision method.

New products from the power merchant to customer with time measurements and load management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Solem, Gerd; Doorman, Gerard; Grande, Ove S.

2003-01-01

The main aim is to develop products from the power merchants that improve the consumer flexibility. For the development of the products the basis is that the consumption is measured by hours and that a connection to a load management scheme is present. Calculations for four products are made where the risk exposure is different for the customer and the supplier. The four products are ''Spot price with mark-up'', ''The combination of constant price and spot price'', ''Constant price with disconnection'' and ''Effect subscription''. The customers are exposed to the spot price in the first two products and may through disconnection reduce the costs by adapting to the market signals. Remote disconnection of parts of the consumption may be offered as a service jointly by the network companies and the power suppliers through a two-way communication but it is not realistic that the customers may pay much for this. ''Spot price with mark-up'' implies that the customer carries the entire risk while constant price may place considerable risk at the power supplier by long high consumption combined with high spot prices. '' Constant price with disconnection'' gives the power supplier the possibilities of reducing the risks. A disconnection possibility that is committing to the customers may be part of the product specification. The customers may be offered a discount calculated out from the costs for alternative price securing. Also '' Effect subscription'' reduces the merchant risks considerably at the disconnection of the consumption. The ''combined product of constant and spot price'' may be interesting from the supplier's viewpoint due to considerable risk reductions compared to solely using the constant price. The product gives the customers a guaranteed price for a part of the product and has an additional possibility of adapting the consumption to the market signals. The network company routines for handling of the hour values are a large challenge. It is important to

Optimizing the order processing of customized products using product configuration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hvam, Lars; Bonev, Martin; Denkena, B.

2011-01-01

. Product configuration based on integrated modular product structure and product family architecture has been recognized as an effective means for implementing mass customization. In order to evaluate the effects of product configuration on order processing, a study has been conducted by the Department...... and its benefits for the order processing have been evaluated....

Benefits of mass customized products: moderating role of product involvement and fashion innovativeness.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Minjung; Yoo, Jungmin

2018-02-01

The objective of this study was to explore impacts and benefits of mass customized products on emotional product attachment, favorable attitudes toward a mass customization program, and the ongoing effect on loyalty intentions. This study further investigated how benefits, attachment, attitudes, and loyalty intentions differed as a function of involvement and fashion innovativeness. 290 female online shoppers in South Korea participated in an online survey. Results of this study revealed that perceived benefits positively influenced emotional product attachment and attitudes toward a mass customization program. In addition, attachment positively influenced attitudes, which in turn affected loyalty intentions. This study also found that benefits, attachment, attitudes, and loyalty intentions were all higher in highly involved consumers (high fashion innovators) than those in less involved consumers (low fashion innovators). This study concludes with theoretical and practical implications for mass customization programs.

Benefits of mass customized products: moderating role of product involvement and fashion innovativeness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minjung Park

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study was to explore impacts and benefits of mass customized products on emotional product attachment, favorable attitudes toward a mass customization program, and the ongoing effect on loyalty intentions. This study further investigated how benefits, attachment, attitudes, and loyalty intentions differed as a function of involvement and fashion innovativeness. 290 female online shoppers in South Korea participated in an online survey. Results of this study revealed that perceived benefits positively influenced emotional product attachment and attitudes toward a mass customization program. In addition, attachment positively influenced attitudes, which in turn affected loyalty intentions. This study also found that benefits, attachment, attitudes, and loyalty intentions were all higher in highly involved consumers (high fashion innovators than those in less involved consumers (low fashion innovators. This study concludes with theoretical and practical implications for mass customization programs.

76 FR 24339 - Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-02

... accessed by the Internet or mobile phone and improved processes that deliver services faster and more... ``Conversations with America'' to Further Improve Customer Service). However, with advances in technology and... major initiative (signature initiative) that will use technology to improve the customer experience; (b...

IMPACT OF CREDENCE ATTRIBUTES OF AGRICULTURAL FOOD PRODUCTS ON CUSTOMER ATTITUDE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fareeha NISAR

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study is to enhance understanding on how a firm can generate value for its customers using a competitive advantage strategy by accumulating credible attributes to its products. There are certain product attributes that customers can only perceive. In the case of agricultural food products, the customers’ consciousness for safe, natural and organic products has enriched the perceived value of the product. To explore the relationship between the credence attributes and attitude of the customers for the agricultural food, a survey questionnaire has been administered to consumers of agricultural food products in the different regions of Punjab, Pakistan. The data analysis has been conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS to investigate the desired relationship in that particular region of the country. It can be concluded that the trust of customer is now very much depending on the presence of credence attribute that customer cannot describe but evaluate during the purchase of food items.

Formal computer-aided product family architecture design for mass customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bonev, Martin; Hvam, Lars; Clarkson, John

2015-01-01

With product customization companies aim at creating higher customer value and stronger economic benefits. The profitability of the offered variety relies on the quality of the developed product family architectures and their consistent implementation in configuration systems. Yet existing method...

Configuring Product Modularity and Service Modularity for Mass Customization Strategies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bask, Anu; Hsuan, Juliana; Rajahonka, Mervi

, and how such configurations become the foundations for mass customization strategies. As a result we identify critical characteristics that are relevant for both product and services, and suggest a conceptual framework consisting of twelve dynamic mass customization strategies with paired product...

Customer Knowledge in (CoCreation of Product. A Case Study of IKEA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Grażyna Koniorczyk

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Customers knowledge is an attractive and effective source of ideas for proposals innovative products (services as well as changes in existing products (services. Contemporary firms recognize the need to co-create product (services with the participation of customers. The aim of this article is to define customer knowledge, value co-creation and customer co-creation concepts. The activities of IKEA were used to illustrate the issues presented in the article.

Customer Buying Behavior : - Online shopping towards electronic product

OpenAIRE

Wang, Dan; Yang, Liuzi

2010-01-01

ABSTRACT Online shopping in EU has been shown to a good potential market. The electronic equipment takes a high percent of the individuals shopping. Compared with other goods, online shopping of electronic goods adds great convenience to the life of the people. Buying electronic gadgets online gives customers an opportunity to find a great variety of product online, and customers can review a wide selection of products and find special offers and discount with the best deals online. In the co...

On the evaluation of product customization strategies in a vertically differentiated market

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wong, Hartanto Wijaya; Lesmono, Dharma

2013-01-01

This paper presents a formal approach to evaluate the value of enhancing product customization in a vertically differentiated market. Different from most existing studies that tend to associate the level of customization with the number of product variants, we take a rather different view...... to the level of customization which we define as the degree to which consumers are involved along the value chain. Consequently, a higher level of customization is achieved when consumers are involved further upstream in the chain. The novelty of our approach stems from the integration of both marketing......- and production-related factors that enable us to: consider trade-offs between customization, lead times and manufacturing costs; and analyze how these trade-offs should be addressed in a market in which one group of consumers is highly concerned about product customization, whereas the other group is more...

PENGEMBANGAN CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT BERBASIS SISTEM E-COMMERCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sugiarto Montana

2010-10-01

Full Text Available PT Dwisanjaya Abadi Mukti is a company engaged in distributing Pertamina lubricating agent with products for industrial and automotive lubricants. Therefore, companies need a Customer Relationship Management E-commerce-based systems, to address the issues of purchasing and service to customers that are still conducted manually. Systems analysis is done through observation interviews, and literature; analysis of survey findings; and identification of information needs from survey. The system is designed to give advantage to the user as to obtain the desired information quickly, to acquire new customers, improve customer relationships, and retain customers; other than that for the company this system reduces operating costs, more efficient time, accessible anytime and anywhere, improving work productivity, increase sales, increase the number of customers, and improve customer satisfaction.Keywords: customer relationship management, e-commerce, front end, back end

Effects of product\\'s warranty on customers\\' preferences: empirical findings on reverse logistics models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arsalan Najmi

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Background: IT products are now becoming the part of every one's life. Since Pakistan didn't manufacture IT products, so the customers had to purchase the products that are available in the markets. During such purchase, customers not only gave preference to brand or price or both but they also consider its warranty so that they are secured with the post purchase risks. Methods: This study was aimed to identify the impact of the warranty on customers' preferences towards brand and price. A conceptual framework was made on the basis of available literature and then data was collected. It was collected from 298 respondents through survey questionnaire and after applying Factor Analysis, One Way MANOVA was applied on the factors. Results and conclusions: The study found that the product's warranty has a significant impact on preferences towards brand, concern for price and price intentions whereas the impact on willingness to pay was found insignificant. The results conclude that Pakistani customers need a branded IT product on competitive prices, which give more in less along with the warranty so that they can enjoy the same quality of the product for a period of time whereas, they are not willing to pay any additional amount for the product just because of Warranty.

The Relationship between Customer Knowledge Management and Performance of Agricultural Product Innovation

OpenAIRE

Hu, Jia-jia

2012-01-01

This paper takes an overview of the CKM and the performance of agricultural product innovation from contents of agricultural product innovation and customer knowledge management (CKM), the relation between CKM and agricultural product innovation. On the basis of the overview, it builds the theoretical framework of CKM and agricultural product innovation. It points out that enterprises can satisfy demands of customers through acquisition, share, utilization and innovation of customer knowledge...

THE INFLUENCE OF PRODUCT QUALITY , PRICE PERCEPTION AND BRAND IMAGE ON SATISFACTION AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY HOLCIM CONCRETE READYMIX IN JAKARTA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sita Budiastari

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to find a picture of the effect of product quality , price perception and brand image on satisfaction and customer loyalty ready mix concrete in Jakarta . This research is a quantitative study with descriptive and causal methods undertaken at Holcim Beton in 2013 with a sample of 100 customers in Jakarta and its surrounding the industrial and commercial segments project . Data collection by questionnaire respondents and analyzed using path analysis with SPSS version 20.0. The results of the study concluded that ( 1 product quality does not effect to customer satisfaction ( 2 Perception price positive and significant effect on customer satisfaction, ( 3 Brand Image does not have an influence on customer satisfaction, ( 4 all independent variables , quality of products , Perception price and a positive brand image and significant consequences for the dependent variable Customer satisfaction, with the value of determination of 50%, while 50% are influenced by other variables ( 5 Product Quality and significant effect on customer loyalty through customer satisfaction, ( 6 Perceived Price does not effect on loyalty through customer satisfaction, ( 7 brand image have effect and siginikan loyalty through customer satisfaction, ( 8 Dependent variable of product quality , price perception and brand image together and significant effect on customer loyalty through customer satisfaction, with value of determination of 77.4 %, and 22.6 % are influenced by other factors. The findings recommend that Holcim aims to improve product quality , perceived price and brand image to increase loyalty through customer satisfaction . It is also recommended to Holcim for increase of services and information to customers in order for increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

How to improve the promotion of Korean beef barbecue, bulgogi, for international customers. An application of quality function deployment.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, So-Hyun; Ham, Sunny; Lee, Min-A

2012-10-01

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a product development technique that translates customer requirements into activities for the development of products and services. This study utilizes QFD to identify American customer's requirements for bulgogi, a popular Korean dish among international customers, and how to fulfill those requirements. A customer survey and an expert opinion survey were conducted for US customers. The top five customer requirements for bulgogi were identified as taste, freshness, flavor, tenderness, and juiciness; ease of purchase was included in the place of tenderness after calculating the weight requirements. Eighteen engineering characteristics were developed, and a 'localization of bulgogi menu' is strongly related to the other characteristics as well. The results from the calculation of relative importance of engineering characteristics identified that the 'control of marinating time', 'localization of bulgogi menu', 'improvement of cooking and serving process', 'development of recipe by parts of beef', and 'use of various seasonings' were the highest contributors to the overall improvement of bulgogi. The relative importance of engineering characteristics, correlation, and technical difficulties are ranked and integrated to develop the most effective strategy. The findings are discussed relative to industry implications. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Improving market oriented product development in Danish food companies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Harmsen, Hanne

1994-01-01

One of the factors that has been strongly associated with successful new product development is a profound knwledge of customers' needs and wants as well as the ability to transform this knowledge into specific product characteristics and benefits there is a general agreement on the importance of......-processing companies. Preliminary results show that the companies have improved their market orientation, but also that the change pro has been difficult and time-consuming and improvements rather incremental.......One of the factors that has been strongly associated with successful new product development is a profound knwledge of customers' needs and wants as well as the ability to transform this knowledge into specific product characteristics and benefits there is a general agreement on the importance...

The Addition of Spiritual Dimension on Customer Value to Investigate the Relationship of Customer Value, Customer Satisfaction and Behavior Intention on Islamic Banks Saving Products in Indonesia

OpenAIRE

Adi Zakaria Afiff; Rifelly Dewi Astuti

2009-01-01

This study propose the addition of a spiritual dimension in the formation of customer value, in addition to the functional, social and emotional dimension of customer value that has already been empirically tested in previous studies, among customers who own saving products at Islamic banks in Indonesia. The study also investigate the relationship between customer value and customer satisfaction, and the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer behavioral intentions among these...

Improving the Customer Configuration Update Process by Explicitly Managing Software Knowledge

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Slinger, S.R.L.

2006-01-01

The implementation and continuous support of a software product at a customer with evolving requirements is a complex task for a product software vendor. There are many customers for the vendor to serve, all of whom might require their own version or variant of the application. Furthermore, the

Evaluating the Release, Delivery, and Deployment Processes of Eight Large Product Software Vendors applying the Customer Configuration Update Model

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jansen, S.R.L.; Brinkkemper, S.

2006-01-01

For software vendors the processes of release, delivery, and deployment to customers are inherently complex. However, software vendors can greatly improve their product quality and quality of service by applying a model that focuses on customer interaction if such a model were available. This

Product bundling as a customer loyalty strategy; Kundenbindung durch Produktbuendel

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wolf, H.G. [Arthur Andersen Business Consulting GmbH, Duesseldorf (Germany)

2000-12-01

In the deregulated market in electricity, all marketers and energy-related service providers are competing not only for new customers, but also for customer loyalty. The article sets out concepts and strategies developed by a business consulting firm, for maintaing or enhancing customer loyalty in the end-use market segment, focusing on customized product bundling. A four-tier approach for product bundle development and implementation is discussed. (orig./CB) [German] Fuer Energieversorger und -dienstleister ergibt sich neben der Neukundengewinnung der strategische Zwang zur Bindung bestehender Kunden. An praktischen Ansaetzen fuer Privatkunden stehen neben Value-Added-Services und Incentives (Kundenclub, -karte) nicht zuletzt Produktbuendel (Bundles) zur Verfuegung. Zur erfolgreichen Entwicklung und Implementierung von Produktbuendeln wird ein vierphasiges Vorgehensmodell erlaeutert. (orig./CB)

Customer Directed Advertising and Product Quality

NARCIS (Netherlands)

L. Esteban; J.M. Hernandez; J.L. Moraga-Gonzalez (José Luis)

2001-01-01

textabstractWe consider a market where a single seller must employ informative advertising to launch a new product of observable quality. The monopolist may use mass, targeted or customer directed advertising. We show that the choice of advertising strategy depends on the economic properties of the

Impact of product development efforts on product introduction and product customization abilities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chaudhuri, Atanu; Dawar, Saloni

2014-01-01

This paper investigates the impact of efforts in new product development-manufacturing integration (NPDMI) on new product introduction (NPI) and product customization (PC) abilities and the moderating effects of product design complexity and importance of new product development order winners...... (NPIOW) on the above relationships. The results from the data on 136 Indian manufacturing plants show that NPDMI, product design complexity and NPIOW all have significant positive impact on NPI and PC abilities. Importance of NPIOW has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between NPDMI and PC...... ability change but product design complexity demonstrate no such effect on the above relationships....

The Addition of Spiritual Dimension on Customer Value to Investigate the Relationship of Customer Value, Customer Satisfaction and Behavior Intention on Islamic Banks Saving Products in Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adi Zakaria Afiff

2009-06-01

Full Text Available This study propose the addition of a spiritual dimension in the formation of customer value, in addition to the functional, social and emotional dimension of customer value that has already been empirically tested in previous studies, among customers who own saving products at Islamic banks in Indonesia. The study also investigate the relationship between customer value and customer satisfaction, and the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer behavioral intentions among these Islamic banks customers. The results show that spiritual dimension is significantly related to the customer value together with all three other dimensions (functional, social and emotional of customer value. All dimensions have significant relationship with customer value. Finally the results also show that customer value positively influence customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction positively influence customer behavior intentions.

Production and Resource Scheduling in Mass Customization with Dependent Setup Consideration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Izabela Ewa; Bocewicz, G.; Do, Ngoc Anh Dung

2014-01-01

will contribute to the success of mass customization. This paper addresses the problem of production and resource scheduling for a production system with dependent setup and internal transportation such as AGVs in a mass customization environment. A constraint-programming-based methodology is developed to satisfy...

Identifying and prioritizing customer requirements from tractor production by QFD method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H Taghizadeh

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Introduction Discovering and understanding customer needs and expectations are considered as important factors on customer satisfaction and play vital role to maintain the current activity among its competitors, proceeding and obtaining customer satisfaction which are critical factors to design a successful production; thus the successful organizations must meet their needs containing the quality of the products or services to customers. Quality Function Deployment (QFD is a technique for studying demands and needs of customers which is going to give more emphasis to the customer's interests in this way. The QFD method in general implemented various tools and methods for reaching qualitative goals; but the most important and the main tool of this method is the house of quality diagrams. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP is a famous and common MADM method based on pair wise comparisons used for determining the priority of understudied factors in various studies until now. With considering effectiveness of QFD method to explicating customer's demands and obtaining customer satisfaction, generally, the researchers followed this question's suite and scientific answer: how can QFD explicate real demands and requirements of customers from tractor final production and what is the prioritization of these demands and requirements in view of customers. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to identify and prioritize the customer requirements of Massey Ferguson (MF 285 tractor production in Iran tractor manufacturing company with t- student statistical test, AHP and QFD methods. Materials and Methods Research method was descriptive and statistical population included all of the tractor customers of Tractor Manufacturing Company in Iran from March 2011 to March 2015. The statistical sample size was 171 which are determined with Cochran index. Moreover, 20 experts' opinion has been considered for determining product's technical requirements. Literature

Value Creating Logic of Customer-Driven Product Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Anders Peder; Sommer, Anita Friis

This paper focuses on how companies on business-to-business markets, characterized by complex customer problems, organize and manage the interaction process as part of the management of customer requests for new products. More specifically it is investigated how the intra-organizational activities...... the relationship between customer problems of high complexity and the organization of activities in the buyer-supplier interaction process. Building on value configuration theory and theory of problem complexity this research contributes to widen our understanding of how marketing and problem solving processes...... part of the problem solving process is configured, when taking the customer supplier interaction into consideration. The research takes an inter-and intra-organizational perspective by focusing on the dyad between a buyer and supplier. A single case study is applied in order to investigate...

Extracting product features and opinion words using pattern knowledge in customer reviews.

Science.gov (United States)

Htay, Su Su; Lynn, Khin Thidar

2013-01-01

Due to the development of e-commerce and web technology, most of online Merchant sites are able to write comments about purchasing products for customer. Customer reviews expressed opinion about products or services which are collectively referred to as customer feedback data. Opinion extraction about products from customer reviews is becoming an interesting area of research and it is motivated to develop an automatic opinion mining application for users. Therefore, efficient method and techniques are needed to extract opinions from reviews. In this paper, we proposed a novel idea to find opinion words or phrases for each feature from customer reviews in an efficient way. Our focus in this paper is to get the patterns of opinion words/phrases about the feature of product from the review text through adjective, adverb, verb, and noun. The extracted features and opinions are useful for generating a meaningful summary that can provide significant informative resource to help the user as well as merchants to track the most suitable choice of product.

Extracting Product Features and Opinion Words Using Pattern Knowledge in Customer Reviews

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Su Su Htay

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Due to the development of e-commerce and web technology, most of online Merchant sites are able to write comments about purchasing products for customer. Customer reviews expressed opinion about products or services which are collectively referred to as customer feedback data. Opinion extraction about products from customer reviews is becoming an interesting area of research and it is motivated to develop an automatic opinion mining application for users. Therefore, efficient method and techniques are needed to extract opinions from reviews. In this paper, we proposed a novel idea to find opinion words or phrases for each feature from customer reviews in an efficient way. Our focus in this paper is to get the patterns of opinion words/phrases about the feature of product from the review text through adjective, adverb, verb, and noun. The extracted features and opinions are useful for generating a meaningful summary that can provide significant informative resource to help the user as well as merchants to track the most suitable choice of product.

Extracting Product Features and Opinion Words Using Pattern Knowledge in Customer Reviews

Science.gov (United States)

Lynn, Khin Thidar

2013-01-01

Due to the development of e-commerce and web technology, most of online Merchant sites are able to write comments about purchasing products for customer. Customer reviews expressed opinion about products or services which are collectively referred to as customer feedback data. Opinion extraction about products from customer reviews is becoming an interesting area of research and it is motivated to develop an automatic opinion mining application for users. Therefore, efficient method and techniques are needed to extract opinions from reviews. In this paper, we proposed a novel idea to find opinion words or phrases for each feature from customer reviews in an efficient way. Our focus in this paper is to get the patterns of opinion words/phrases about the feature of product from the review text through adjective, adverb, verb, and noun. The extracted features and opinions are useful for generating a meaningful summary that can provide significant informative resource to help the user as well as merchants to track the most suitable choice of product. PMID:24459430

House of Quality (HoQ) as a tool for improvement customer satisfaction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fazila Said; Noriah Mod Ali; Siti Mariam Ibrahim

2010-01-01

Full-text: Improvements to the customer satisfaction level is an important agenda today for the preservation of a quality certification. This study shows where the critical attributes or Voice of Customers, VOC-interest analysis of the results of Importance Performance Analysis (IPA). Questionnaires from our four customer service centers at Malaysian Nuclear Agency has been used in developing the House of Quality (HoQ). The innovation of HoQ is one of the simple and attractive services that display comprehensive information covering the needs of customers (VOC), the technical response, the correlation of technical, communication matrix, technical and planning division. Therefore, the information obtained from HoQ can be used in assisting the top management planning in accordance with the priority improvement activities to improve customer satisfaction levels in the near future. (author)

Leveraging management information in improving call centre productivity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manthisana Mosese

2016-04-01

Objectives: This research explored the use of management information and its impact on two fundamental functions namely, improving productivity without compromising the quality of service, in the call centre of a well-known South African fashion retailer, Edcon. Following the implementation of the call centre technology project the research set out to determine how Edcon can transform their call centre to improve productivity and customer service through effective utilisation of their management information. Method: Internal documents and reports were analysed to provide the basis of evaluation between the measures of productivity prior to and post the implementation of a technology project at Edcon’s call centre. Semi-structured in-depth and group interviews were conducted to establish the importance and use of management information in improving productivity and customer service. Results: The results indicated that the availability of management information has indeed contributed to improved efficiency at the Edcon call centre. Although literature claims that there is a correlation between a call centre technology upgrade and improvement in performance, evident in the return on investment being realised within a year or two of implementation, it fell beyond the scope of this study to investigate the return on investment for Edcon’s call centre. Conclusion: Although Edcon has begun realising benefits in improved productivity in their call centre from their available management information, information will continue to play a crucial role in supporting management with informed decisions that will improve the call centre operations. [pdf to follow

Evaluation and decision of products conceptual design schemes based on customer requirements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huang, Hong Zhong; Li, Yan Feng; Liu, Yu; Wang, Zhonglai [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan (China); Liu, Wenhai [2China Science Patent Trademark Agents Ltd., Beijing (China)

2011-09-15

Within the competitive market environment, understanding customer requirements is crucial for all corporations to obtain market share and survive competition. Only the products exactly meeting customer requirements can win in the market place. Therefore, customer requirements play a very important role in the evaluation and decision process of conceptual design schemes of products. In this paper, an evaluation and decision method based on customer requirements is presented. It utilizes the importance of customer requirements, the satisfaction degree of each evaluation metric to the specification, and an evaluation metric which models customer requirements to evaluate the satisfaction degree of each design scheme to specific customer requirements via the proposed BP neural networks. In the evaluation and decision process, fuzzy sets are used to describe the importance of customer requirements, the relationship between customer requirements and evaluation metrics, the satisfaction degree of each scheme to customer requirements, and the crisp set is used to describe the satisfaction degree of each metric to specifications. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an example of front suspension fork design of mountain bikes.

Evaluation and decision of products conceptual design schemes based on customer requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Hong Zhong; Li, Yan Feng; Liu, Yu; Wang, Zhonglai; Liu, Wenhai

2011-01-01

Within the competitive market environment, understanding customer requirements is crucial for all corporations to obtain market share and survive competition. Only the products exactly meeting customer requirements can win in the market place. Therefore, customer requirements play a very important role in the evaluation and decision process of conceptual design schemes of products. In this paper, an evaluation and decision method based on customer requirements is presented. It utilizes the importance of customer requirements, the satisfaction degree of each evaluation metric to the specification, and an evaluation metric which models customer requirements to evaluate the satisfaction degree of each design scheme to specific customer requirements via the proposed BP neural networks. In the evaluation and decision process, fuzzy sets are used to describe the importance of customer requirements, the relationship between customer requirements and evaluation metrics, the satisfaction degree of each scheme to customer requirements, and the crisp set is used to describe the satisfaction degree of each metric to specifications. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an example of front suspension fork design of mountain bikes

Quality-improvement initiatives focused on enhancing customer service in the outpatient pharmacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Poulin, Tenley J; Bain, Kevin T; Balderose, Bonnie K

2015-09-01

The development and implementation of quality-improvement initiatives to enhance customer service in an outpatient pharmacy of a Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center are described. Historically low customer service satisfaction rates with the outpatient pharmacy at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center prompted this quality-improvement project. A three-question survey was designed to be easily and quickly administered to veterans in the outpatient pharmacy waiting area. Using 5-point Likert scale, veterans were asked to rate (1) their overall experience with the outpatient pharmacy service and (2) their satisfaction with the customer service provided by the pharmacy department. They were also asked how they thought the pharmacy department could improve its customer service. After receiving feedback from the survey, several quality-improvement initiatives were developed. The initiatives were categorized as environmental, personnel, communicative, and technological. For each initiative, one or more tasks were developed and the initiatives were subsequently implemented over eight months. After each task was completed, veterans were surveyed to measure the impact of the change. A total of 79 veterans were surveyed before the implementation of the quality-improvement initiatives, and 49% and 68% rated their experience with the outpatient pharmacy and customer service favorably, respectively. Twenty-five veterans were surveyed after the implementation of numerous quality-improvement interventions, with 44% and 72% rating their experience with the outpatient pharmacy and customer service favorably. Customer service satisfaction with an outpatient pharmacy service at a VA medical center was enhanced through the implementation of various quality-improvement initiatives. Copyright © 2015 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer satisfaction and competencies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gritti, Paola; Foss, Nicolai Juul

We empirically address how customer satisfaction and loyalty in the banking industry may affect profitability. This helps to identify the strategy and competencies necessary to benefit from customer relationships which are important sources for improved performance in the banking. We do......, loyalty is a mediator between financial and not-financial customer value and two sources of customer satisfaction, namely relationships with the front office and the branch, on the one hand, and the products offered, on the other....... this by analyzing data collected on 2,105 customers of 118 branches of one of the biggest banks of an Italian banking group. We find that customer satisfaction impacts loyalty, which in turn has a direct effect on financial and non-financial customer value/total customer value/complex customer value. Moreover...

Customized Pull Systems for Single-Product Flow Lines

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gaury, E.G.A.; Kleijnen, J.P.C.; Pierreval, H.

1998-01-01

Traditionally pull production systems are managed through classic control systems such as Kanban, Conwip, or Base stock, but this paper proposes ‘customized’ pull control. Customization means that a given production line is managed through a pull control system that in principle connects each stage

Process Improvement: Customer Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Cull, Donald

2015-01-01

Utilizing the comment section of patient satisfaction surveys, Clark Memorial Hospital in Jeffersonville, IN went through a thoughtful process to arrive at an experience that patients said they wanted. Two Lean Six Sigma tools were used--the Voice of the Customer (VoC) and the Affinity Diagram. Even when using these tools, a facility will not be able to accomplish everything the patient may want. Guidelines were set and rules were established for the Process Improvement Team in order to lessen frustration, increase focus, and ultimately be successful. The project's success is driven by the team members carrying its message back to their areas. It's about ensuring that everyone is striving to improve the patients' experience by listening to what they say is being done right and what they say can be done better. And then acting on it.

Proposição de um modelo baseado em Customer Lifetime Value para a análise de melhorias no sistema produtivo Proposition of a Customer Lifetime Value model to evaluate production system improvements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luís Felipe Riehs Camargo

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Este artigo propõe um modelo para analisar melhorias no sistema produtivo à luz do valor do cliente para a empresa. Para isso, apresenta um modelo que agrega variáveis advindas do processo produtivo, do mercado consumidor e de métricas do marketing. Os três pilares de sustentação do modelo são os clientes, com suas necessidades e percepções em relação aos produtos e serviços; as características atribuídas pela produção; e as regras para análise do impacto da adoção de diferentes melhorias no sistema produtivo sobre o valor vitalício dos clientes atuais (CLV. Além disso, um modelo de escolha discreta (logit é proposto como o integrador entre a produção e o marketing. O método de pesquisa utilizado foi composto de quatro etapas: levantamento de referencial; construção do modelo conceitual; aplicação em um caso; análise e discussão. Como resultados, observa-se que, havendo disponibilidade de informações e tempo para sua condução, o modelo contribui para a identificação de melhorias que contemplem simultaneamente a visão de produção e a de sustentabilidade financeira.This paper aims to propose a model to investigate the effect of improvements on the productive system on the organization considering customer value. The model proposed combine variables representing the productive process, market, and marketing metrics. It consists of three fundamental elements: consumers and their needs and perceptions of products and services; characteristics of the productive system; and rules to analyze the impact of adoption of different improvements on the productive system. Customer lifetime value (CLV was measured and a discrete choice model (logit is proposed as an integrator between production and marketing perspectives. The research methodology consisted of four steps: referential research, conceptual modeling, application in a particular case, and results analysis. As a result, it is observed that upon availability

Applying CBR to machine tool product configuration design oriented to customer requirements

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Pengjia; Gong, Yadong; Xie, Hualong; Liu, Yongxian; Nee, Andrew Yehching

2017-01-01

Product customization is a trend in the current market-oriented manufacturing environment. However, deduction from customer requirements to design results and evaluation of design alternatives are still heavily reliant on the designer's experience and knowledge. To solve the problem of fuzziness and uncertainty of customer requirements in product configuration, an analysis method based on the grey rough model is presented. The customer requirements can be converted into technical characteristics effectively. In addition, an optimization decision model for product planning is established to help the enterprises select the key technical characteristics under the constraints of cost and time to serve the customer to maximal satisfaction. A new case retrieval approach that combines the self-organizing map and fuzzy similarity priority ratio method is proposed in case-based design. The self-organizing map can reduce the retrieval range and increase the retrieval efficiency, and the fuzzy similarity priority ratio method can evaluate the similarity of cases comprehensively. To ensure that the final case has the best overall performance, an evaluation method of similar cases based on grey correlation analysis is proposed to evaluate similar cases to select the most suitable case. Furthermore, a computer-aided system is developed using MATLAB GUI to assist the product configuration design. The actual example and result on an ETC series machine tool product show that the proposed method is effective, rapid and accurate in the process of product configuration. The proposed methodology provides a detailed instruction for the product configuration design oriented to customer requirements.

Dynamic Pricing Competition with Strategic Customers Under Vertical Product Differentiation

OpenAIRE

Qian Liu; Dan Zhang

2013-01-01

We consider dynamic pricing competition between two firms offering vertically differentiated products to strategic customers who are intertemporal utility maximizers. We show that price skimming arises as the unique pure-strategy Markov perfect equilibrium in the game under a simple condition. Our results highlight the asymmetric effect of strategic customer behavior on quality-differentiated firms. Even though the profit of either firm decreases as customers become more strategic, the low-qu...

Survey of customer expectation and satisfaction: preliminary research of a modular product design approach for sheep cage design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rochman Yuli Agusti

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This study aims to produce a modular sheep cage design. Feeding, maintenance and integrated waste management are taking into account in the design. The modular and integrated product design provides advantages such as (1 easy way of making and modifying the product, (2 enabling the utilization of existing facilities such as shade, (3 giving the user a sense of convenience as the waste can be processed and not being a source of pollution. The Modular Quality Function Deployment (QFD method is applied to identify modules associated with the customer needs of the product. A survey about customer expectation and satisfaction was conducted in order to evaluate the gap of both. The highest value of gap between customer expectation and satisfaction of products indicates that the customer needs are the focus of the problems. The most important customer needs are considered in modification and improvement of design. These are (1 the cage is not easy to fall down, (2 the sheep cage can last for long time, (3 it uses a strong frame, (4 the roof section materials is not easy to leak, and (5 It can be used even if one part of the cage is damaged.

Assessment of business customers satisfaction with the products and service of Pnevmostroimashina, jsc, on the B2B market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. M. Kapustina

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The paper is dedicated to development of a methodology for assessment of customer satisfaction with the products and services on the b2b market. The study of customer satisfaction is aimed at building strong and mutually beneficial supplier-customer relationship. The authors focus on the importance of customer satisfaction continuous monitoring intended for improvement of the company’s market performance. The research based on the works by Kano N., Lamben J.-J., Carter R., Parashuraman A., Zeitaml V. A., Berry L. L. and others, describes an algorithm study of consumers and offers a methodology to evaluate customer satisfaction with the industrial products. Based on the analysis of the economic crisis effects on the machine-building industry, the authors determine the performance of “Pnevmostroimashina”, JSC, on the road and construction equipment market and illustrate an example of practical use of the customer satisfaction assessment technique in the company. At the end of the paper some recommendations for development of an efficient customer satisfaction measurement procedure are introduced.

An approach to improving marketing campaign effectiveness and customer experience using geospatial analytics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brink, Michael Philippus

2017-08-01

Full Text Available This article discusses a case study in which a South African furniture and household goods retailer wishes to improve its marketing campaigns by employing location-based marketing insights, and also to prioritise customer satisfaction. This paper presents two methods used in an exploratory exercise with the aim of improving the retailer’s business in these ways. The methods of customer profiling and identifying geographical customer clusters summarise how the retailer’s strategic marketing strategies and customer experience can be improved. The methods presented in this article rely on the use of spatial data to solve the business problems.

Reconfiguring Variety, Profitability, and Postponement for Product Customization with Global Supply Chains

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bonev, Martin; Myrodia, Anna; Hvam, Lars

2016-01-01

At present, many industrial companies offering high product variety focus on systematically reducing the complexity of their product range and busi-ness processes. Related challenges are often named to increase time to market, reduce the effectiveness in product development, and lower process...... efficiency. For manufacturers with global supply chains additional uncertainties arise in de-fining the right manufacturing strategy with respect to production location and postponement. To better understand related managerial implications, this paper discusses a case study a global manufacturer providing...... customized industrial ap-plications. In particular, the study investigates the relationships between product variant profitability and manufacturing strategy relative to postponement and lo-cation. The results indicate that an improved configuration of these factors through substitution and supply chain...

Customer First? The Relationship between Advisors and Consumers of Financial Products

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A. Vlam (Anita)

2011-01-01

textabstractCustomer First is an important issue of the recently introduced banking code in the Netherlands. It mainly concerns customer satisfaction and it is aimed at regaining trust of customers. Interestingly, the code does not address the urgency of improving customers’ financial literacy and

Customization Issues

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn; Brunø, Thomas Ditlev; Taps, Stig B.

2014-01-01

Implementation of mass customization and product configuration in companies requires fundamental considerations about how products can fulfil the demand from customers. In order to support such decision-making, a multi-level model for customization is developed. This model identifies four different...... levels of customization, ranging from the structure level at the bottom, through the performance level and the experience level, to the learning level at the top. The model also has a dual view with customers/demand at one side and product/supplier at the other side. It is a rather general model, which...... can be applied to many types of products, and typically, product designers must decide how far up in levels the customization should aim. In this paper, the four-level customization model is applied to wheel chairs....

EMOTION BASED ANALYSIS OF TURKISH CUSTOMER OPINIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Kahya-Ozyirmidokuz

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Firms should manage their customer feedback so they can adapt to rapid changes in the environment. They have to interact with their customers to understand them and to turn their opinions into useful knowledge. Understanding customers' feelings about a product gives firmS competitive advantage through continuous market monitoring. They can thus generate improving strategies about the system to change perceptions that drive the behaviours of the customers. Firms can view their customers' happiness as a key tool for decision-making. This study calculates online product happiness by using the average emotional valence values of customer opinions. We analyse Turkish opinions about a product over a period of 3 months. We find the averages of the online emotional valence values of the product per month. We also determined the increase in happiness over time. According to the opinion valence values, we found the relations between the documents.

Opinion Summarizationof CustomerComments

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, Miao; Wu, Guoshi

Web 2.0 technologies have enabled more and more customers to freely comment on different kinds of entities, such as sellers, products and services. The large scale of information poses the need and challenge of automatic summarization. In many cases, each of the user-generated short comments implies the opinions which rate the target entity. In this paper, we aim to mine and to summarize all the customer comments of a product. The algorithm proposed in this researchis more reliable on opinion identification because it is unsupervised and the accuracy of the result improves as the number of comments increases. Our research is performed in four steps: (1) mining the frequent aspects of a product that have been commented on by customers; (2) mining the infrequent aspects of a product which have been commented by customers (3) identifying opinion words in each comment and deciding whether each opinion word is positive, negative or neutral; (4) summarizing the comments. This paper proposes several novel techniques to perform these tasks. Our experimental results using comments of a number of products sold online demonstrate the effectiveness of the techniques.

Whatever the customer wants, the customer gets? Exploring the gap between consumer preferences and default electricity products in Germany

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kaenzig, Josef; Heinzle, Stefanie Lena; Wüstenhagen, Rolf

2013-01-01

In liberalized electricity markets, residential customers can choose their preferred provider and select among a variety of different electricity products, including green power options. Successful product design and marketing strategies for green electricity may provide electricity providers with a competitive advantage, while at the same time contributing to energy policy objectives. This requires, however, a thorough understanding of customer preferences. We investigate the relative importance of different product attributes in creating customer value, and find that price and electricity mix are the two most important attributes. The German electricity customers we surveyed in 2009 expressed an implicit willingness to pay a premium of about 16% for electricity from renewable sources. We conclude that consumers are willing to pay a significant price premium for an upgrade from the current default electricity mix in Germany to a more environmentally friendly default electricity mix, and discuss implications for marketing strategy and energy policy. Our findings are based on a dataset of 4968 experimental choices made by 414 German residential consumers, collected in a stated preference survey. - Highlights: ► Study is based on 4968 experimental choices made by 414 German retail consumers. ► Apart from price, the electricity mix is the most important product attribute. ► Majority of consumers prefer nuclear-free electricity. ► Respondents are willing to pay a premium for green electricity. ► German default electricity mix does not correspond to current customer preferences.

Improving productivity and firm performance with enterprise resource planning

Science.gov (United States)

Beheshti, Hooshang M.; Beheshti, Cyrus M.

2010-11-01

Productivity is generally considered to be the efficient utilisation of organisational resources and is measured in terms of the efficiency of a worker, company or nation. Focusing on efficiency alone, however, can be harmful to the organisation's long-term success and competitiveness. The full benefits of productivity improvement measures are realised when productivity is examined from two perspectives: operational efficiency (output/input) of an individual worker or a business unit as well as performance (effectiveness) with regard to end user or customer satisfaction. Over the years, corporations have adopted new technology to integrate business activities in order to achieve both effectiveness and efficiency in their operations. In recent years, many firms have invested in enterprise resource planning (ERP) in order to integrate all business activities into a uniform system. The implementation of ERP enables the firm to reduce the transaction costs of the business and improve its productivity, customer satisfaction and profitability.

Pengaruh Customer Relationship Marketing Dan Brand Trust Terhadap Customer Loyalty Pada PT. Asuransi Jiwasraya (Persero) Cabang Pekanbaru

OpenAIRE

Pasaribu, Verawati; Karneli, Okta

2017-01-01

The development of business nowadays claim theirself to give the best and to do the improvement not only for the service but also their product. The dinamyc competition enable the business not to find the new customer, but to defend them for a loyal so that they don't interest to the other business. One of the customer loyalty strategy is Customer Relationship Marketing and Brand Trust. This reserach analyzes the influence of Customer Relationship Marketing and Brand Trust to Customer Loyalty...

Improving Customer Service at the Agricultural Development Banks ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Improving Customer Service at the Agricultural Development Banks in Ghana: An Application of the Queuing Theory. ... African Journal of Management Research. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue ...

The AskIT Service Desk: A Model for Improving Productivity and Reducing Costs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ashcraft, Phillip Lynn [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Fogle, Blythe G. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Cummings, Susan M. [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Lopez, Leon [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2016-07-29

This was prepared for the business process improvement presentation to the Department of Energy. Los Alamos National Laboratory provides a single point of contact, the AskIT Service Desk, to address issues that impact customer productivity. At the most basic level, what customers want is for their calls to be received, to get a response from a knowledgeable analyst, and to have their issues resolved and their requests fulfilled. Providing a centralized, single point of contact service desk makes initiating technical or business support simple for the customer and improves the odds of immediately resolving the issue or correctly escalating the request to the next support level when necessary. Fulfilling customer requests through automated workflow also improves customer productivity and reduces costs. Finally, customers should be provided the option to solve their own problems through easy access to self-help resources such as frequently asked questions (FAQs) and how-to guides. To accomplish this, everyone who provides and supports services must understand how these processes and functions work together. Service providers and those who support services must “speak the same language” and share common objectives. The Associate Directorate for Business Innovation (ADBI) began the journey to improve services by selecting a known service delivery framework (Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL). From this framework, components that contribute significant business value were selected.

CASE-BASED PRODUCT CONFIGURATION AND REUSE IN MASS CUSTOMIZATION

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Wang Shiwei; Tan Jianrong; Zhang Shuyou; Wang Xin; He Chenqi

2004-01-01

The increasing complexity and size of configuration knowledge bases requires the provision of advanced methods supporting the development of the actual configuration process and design reuse.A new framework to find a feasible and practical product configuration method is presented in mass customization.The basic idea of the approach is to integrate case-based reasoning (CBR) with a constraint satisfaction problem(CSP).The similarity measure between a crisp and range is also given,which is common in case retrieves.Based on the configuration model,a product platform and customer needs,case adaptation is carried out with the repair-based algorithm.Lastly,the methodology in the elevator configuration design domain is tested.

Perancangan Customer Knowledge Management pada PT Pandawa Maju Perkasa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joni Suhartono

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In the era of global trade, more countries want a quality of product with optimal price. PT Pandawa Maju Perkasa engaged in export trade services requires an application that can bridge the communication between the customer and the company. It can also create appropriate knowledge to present the product to the customer. Knowledge of the product obtained will be shared to the customer as company's marketing activities. In addition, critics and suggestions are very necessary for the improvement of customer service of the company. Research in this study was done by analyzing business process, designing model of knowledge management system, and designing system model. The design of the system made consisted of making class diagrams, use case diagrams, sequence diagrams, and user interface. The design of the CKM system will help the company capture customer demand for the goods they want, the communication between the customer and the company can be well established, critics and suggestions facility made is used to improve services to customers. 

Smart Automation, Customer Experience and Customer Engagement in Electric Vehicles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asad Ullah

2018-04-01

Full Text Available A major challenge to cleaner and more sustainable transportation is the lack of adoptability of electric vehicles (EVs by customers. Therefore, most of the vehicles we see on the road use fossil fuel instead of sustainable green energy sources. One way to improve customer acceptance is to market EVs as a socially desirable product, rather than only environmentally friendly. The silver lining to promote is the potential of information and communications technology (ICT features in EVs, which can lead to a deeper connection between the EVs and their users. These engaging technologies can bring customers closer to the company, resulting in generating big data, which can lead to even deeper insights into customer preferences. Because the technology of vehicle connectivity and automation is just taking off, it is important to understand how these technologies in EVs can enhance customer experiences and result in sustainable customer engagement. Unfortunately, this important research area remains neglected. This research, therefore, is focused on building a conceptual framework for understanding the influence of electric vehicle (EV automation and connectivity on customer experience, and ultimately, customer engagement.

The Effect of Supply Disruptions on Customer Service Levels: a Case for Delivering Fertilizer Products using Maritime Transportation

Science.gov (United States)

Siswanto, N.; Kurniawati, U.; Wiratno, S. E.; Rusdiansyah, A.

2018-04-01

Delivering a product to customers can have a series of activities. It starts with the production of the product and then transporting it to the customers. However, uncontrollable and undesirable chance of disruption can occur during the delivery either at the production facility/supply side or in the process of transporting the product. Many researches has been conducting in the process of delivering the product. However not many considers these disruptions, although the disruptions has negative impacts on company such as reduce the profit, produce unbalanced inventory, and affect its reputation. This research will focus on the effect of supply disruption on customer service levels in the maritime transportation problem in order to maintain inventory level both in the supply and destination warehouses during predetermined planning horizon. The system considered consists of one loading port and two discharge ports for distributing one product. By using discrete event simulation, the result showed that supply disruption affects unbalanced inventory in the destination warehouses so that it will also influence company’s service level. The results show that there is a significant decreasing both in delivery service level, about 14%, and production service level, about 15% when the disruption occurs. A scenario to increase production rate is simulated to improved the service level.

Estimating customer preferences for new pricing products. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goett, A.A.

1998-10-01

This report summarizes the results of a review of various methods to analyze customer preferences for electric service pricing products. The purpose of this study was to evaluate different techniques for analyzing preferences for electric service and pricing products in a competitive retail electricity market. In this market, competing providers will offer a variety of electric services under different price structures, and customers will face the decision of choosing a single electric service provider and pricing plan. The service and price characteristics that utilities offer will largely determine their market shares and profitability. Understanding preferences will be critical to quantifying the effects of service and pricing attributes on market share and profitability in the deregulated retail electricity market

Innovative Processes and Products for Mass Customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blecker, Thorsten; Edwards, Kasper; Hvam, Lars

solution. The first part of the paper describes the product configuration software and service platform KoViP, developed by the CAD software provider ISD, Dortmund, in cooperation with the ITM chair of the University of Bochum and funded by the EU and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The main...... goal of KoViP was to create a modular, easy configurable, standard software platform and a suite of standard services for the knowledge acquisition and maintenance as well as for the implementation of product configurators in SMEs producing mass customized products. The second part of the contribution...

How to Reduce Customer Struggles in Online Shopping in China

OpenAIRE

Wang, Fan

2012-01-01

This paper attempts to provide efficient approaches on reducing customer struggles in online shopping. It appears that online retailing in China needs more improvements based on the customer-centred perspective. Customer struggles relate to physical and psychological flounders, such as unqualified products, unsatisfied services, loss of money and information leakage. Factors that affect customer struggles online include price, diversity of products, quality of items, quality of services, and ...

CUSTOMER DRIVEN QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF JUTE YARN USING AHP BASED QFD: A CASE STUD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Taposh Kumar Kapuria

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The ready-made garment (RMG industries in Bangladesh have become very competitive to cope with the competitors. The performance of this sector has attracted many countries to invest their money safely here and also earns foreign currency by exporting different materials like jute yarn. Jute yarn is a spun material which is prepared to use for weaving, knitting, sewing threads, carpets, carrying bags etc. In fiscal year 2015-16, according to data from Bangladesh's Export Promotion Bureau (EPB, Bangladesh has earned $559 million by exporting jute yarn and twine. To meet the growing demand of jute yarn worldwide, Bangladesh still has lots of possibilities to earn huge amount of foreign currency by improving the quality. It's a persistent need for Bangladeshi local jute yarn manufacturers to come forward, seek possibilities for improving quality, and fulfill the worldwide demand. The paper focuses on the application of AHP based QFD approach on a manufacturing company to improve its quality of product & improving the level of customer satisfaction. The paper shows how customer requirements can be identified and used them to prioritize the design requirements for improving quality of jute yarn. Here, AHP is integrated into house of quality (HOQ that can be guide for overcoming the pitfalls of traditional QFD.

Customer satisfaction measurement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maričić Branko R.

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Customer satisfaction is important in business management as a basis for long-term profitability of a single line of products and services and the company as a whole. Customer satisfaction in modern market conditions is characterized by a large number of alternatives that can satisfy the same need or desire of consumers, and are a prerequisite for the retention, loyalty, and positive verbal communication between companies and vendors on one hand and consumers on the other. Companies are investing more and more investment and management efforts in improving customer satisfaction. Improving customer satisfaction and its measurement involves the taking of appropriate marketing strategies and tactics, as well as corrective measures. This paper presents the well-known attempts to measure customers' satisfaction at the macro and micro level of marketing analysis. The index of consumer satisfaction is an important indicator of achieved quality and market performance of companies and can be measured on a micro and macro level. National customer satisfaction indexes are useful framework for analyzing the competitiveness of national economies, industries and individual companies and are used for a variety of other aspects of observation and analysis. Standardization of consumer satisfaction indexes in different countries allows comparability of the data, giving a new quality of analysis in the era of globalization and internationalization of business.

Is Mass Customization Sustainable?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Thomas Ditlev; Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn; Nielsen, Kjeld

2011-01-01

Mass customizers are like other companies currently experiencing an increasing customer demand for environmentally sustainable products as well as an increasingly strict legislation regarding environmental sustainability. This paper addresses the issue whether the concepts mass customization...... and sustainability are fundamentally compatible by asking the question: can a mass customized product be sustainable? Several factors could indicate that mass customized products are less sustainable than standardized products; however other factors suggest the opposite. This paper explores these factors during...... three life cycle phases for a product: Production, Use and End of Life. It is concluded that there is not an unambiguous causal relationship between mass customization and sustainability; however several factors unique to mass customized products are essential to consider during product and process...

Analysing Customer Opinions with Text Mining Algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Consoli, Domenico

2009-08-01

Knowing what the customer thinks of a particular product/service helps top management to introduce improvements in processes and products, thus differentiating the company from their competitors and gain competitive advantages. The customers, with their preferences, determine the success or failure of a company. In order to know opinions of the customers we can use technologies available from the web 2.0 (blog, wiki, forums, chat, social networking, social commerce). From these web sites, useful information must be extracted, for strategic purposes, using techniques of sentiment analysis or opinion mining.

Measuring of customer satisfaction on example of Delta DMD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kostić Ela

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Companies which do business in today's competitive environment, has to continuously work on improvement of theirs products and services, based on customers' needs. Most widely used method for examine customer expectations and measuring satisfaction is researches, which goal is to evaluate company performance from customer angle and to give management tool for strategic planning. Surveys results have to be used as a base for defining improvements areas. In this article is shown example of company Delta DMD which do customer satisfaction researches twice a year, since 2007, and results of latest researches with guidelines for further improvements in company. .

Application of Value Engineering to Improve upon Customer Services Performance in Mazandaran Water and Sewage Company

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Reza Tavakkoli-Mogahddam

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Over the course of producing and marketing goods and services, it appears that industry faces a new challenge in which information and science form the basis for any organizational movement. In this regard, the competitive preference of the organization concentrates on customer and value creation in the organization. Value engineering recognizes product/service functions and produces those with the maximum value at the lowest cost without the loss of production or service quality and safety. In this paper, using value engineering based on the international job plan of the SAVE (Society of American Value Engineering, various alternatives are proposed to improve upon the performance of Customer Services of Water and Sewage Co. The results indicate possible savings of about 714 Million Rials for the water authority in the city of Sari and 4860 Million Rials across Mazandaran Province.

Customer Clustering Based on Customer Purchasing Sequence Data

OpenAIRE

Yen-Chung Liu; Yen-Liang Chen

2017-01-01

Customer clustering has become a priority for enterprises because of the importance of customer relationship management. Customer clustering can improve understanding of the composition and characteristics of customers, thereby enabling the creation of appropriate marketing strategies for each customer group. Previously, different customer clustering approaches have been proposed according to data type, namely customer profile data, customer value data, customer transaction data, and customer...

Influence of Customer Quality Perception on the Effectiveness of Commercial Stimuli for Electronic Products.

Science.gov (United States)

Garrido-Morgado, Álvaro; González-Benito, Óscar; Martos-Partal, Mercedes

2016-01-01

Creating and maintaining customer loyalty are strategic requirements for modern business. In the current competitive context, product quality, and brand experience are crucial in building and maintaining customer loyalty. Consumer loyalty, which may be classified into cognitive loyalty and affective loyalty, is related to customers' quality perception. Cue utilization theory distinguishes two dimensions for perceived quality, extrinsic quality-linked to the brand-and intrinsic quality-related with internal product characteristics. We propose that (i) cognitive loyalty is more influenced by intrinsic product quality whereas extrinsic product quality (brand name) is more salient for affective loyalty and, (ii) different commercial stimuli have a differential effectiveness on intrinsic and extrinsic perceived quality. In fact, in this study, we analyze how perceived quality dimensions may influence the effectiveness of two different commercial stimuli: displays and advertising flyers. While displays work within the point of sale under time-constrained conditions where consumers are more likely to use heuristics to simplify their decisions, advertising flyers work outside of the point of sale under low time-constrained conditions, and therefore favor a more reasoned purchase decision where systematic processing will be more likely. We analyze the role of quality perception in determining the effectiveness of both these commercial stimuli for selling products that induce high purchase involvement and perceived risk. The empirical analysis focuses on computer products sold by one of Europe's largest computer retailers and it combines scanner, observational, and survey data. The results show that both dimensions of quality perceptions moderate the influence of displays and advertising flyers on sales, but their impact is different on each commercial stimuli. Extrinsic quality perception increases to a greater extent the effect of displays due to the use of a brand name

Photovoltaics manufacturer's overview of interactions with customers of photovoltaic products

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Darkazalli, G.

1982-11-01

Communications between the customer and manufacturer of photovoltaic products often require time-consuming interaction before each has the necessary information. Customers appear not to know what information is needed by the supplier to size photovoltaic systems properly nor are they adequately able to estimate their own system needs. Customers can make unrealistic measurement demands and do not provide feedback to the supplier on system performance in the field.

The effect of proposed software products' features on the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of potential customers

Science.gov (United States)

Hussain, Azham; Mkpojiogu, Emmanuel O. C.; Yusof, Muhammad Mat

2016-08-01

This paper reports the effect of proposed software products features on the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of potential customers of proposed software products. Kano model's functional and dysfunctional technique was used along with Berger et al.'s customer satisfaction coefficients. The result shows that only two features performed the most in influencing the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of would-be customers of the proposed software product. Attractive and one-dimensional features had the highest impact on the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of customers. This result will benefit requirements analysts, developers, designers, projects and sales managers in preparing for proposed products. Additional analysis showed that the Kano model's satisfaction and dissatisfaction scores were highly related to the Park et al.'s average satisfaction coefficient (r=96%), implying that these variables can be used interchangeably or in place of one another to elicit customer satisfaction. Furthermore, average satisfaction coefficients and satisfaction and dissatisfaction indexes were all positively and linearly correlated.

Improvement of the customer satisfaction through Quality Assurance Matrix and QC-Story methods: A case study from automotive industry

Science.gov (United States)

Sicoe, G. M.; Belu, N.; Rachieru, N.; Nicolae, E. V.

2017-10-01

Presently, in the automotive industry, the tendency is to adapt permanently to the changes and introduce the market tendency in the new products that leads of the customer satisfaction. Many quality techniques were adopted in this field to continuous improvement of product and process quality and advantages were also gained. The present paper has focused on possibilities that offers the use of Quality Assurance Matrix (QAM) and Quality Control Story (QC Story) to provide largest protection against nonconformities in the production process, throughout a case study in the automotive industry. There is a direct relationship from the QAM to a QC Story analysis. The failures identified using QAM are treated with QC Story methodology. Using this methods, will help to decrease the PPM values and will increase the quality performance and the customer satisfaction.

Customer Satisfaction Index Model on Three Level Of Socioeconomic Status In Bogor Case Study: Customer Satisfaction on Branded Cooking Oil Product

OpenAIRE

Budi Setiawan

2014-01-01

Customer satisfaction index models have been developed in many countries, including Indonesia. Those models were commonly not focused on the socioeconomic status (SES) of the customer, sothis condition could be a research gap. The aims of this research is to analyze the customer satisfaction index model of branded cooking oil product in Bogor, Indonesia based on SES established from the household monthly routine consumption. Questionnaires were used as primary data collection instrument in th...

New Sustainable Tourism Product Development for Russian Customers

OpenAIRE

Racheeva, Polina

2015-01-01

Sustainable tourism is a new concept for tourism sector; it is tourism that reduces negative tourism impacts and brings benefits instead. The current problem of sustainable tourism is lack of attractive tourism products. Their development is crucial since customers seek for experiences at a destination. Russians are an important segment for Finnish tourism, therefore their consumer behaviours has to be studied. The aim of this research is to find how to develop a tourism product for susta...

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND RETAIL BANKING TRENDS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

PAUL OVIDIU HANDRO

2017-11-01

Full Text Available The concept of customer experience refers to the impact of all the interactions that the customer may have with a bank, taking into account the multitude of touchpoints by which he activates. Customer experience includes every element related to the promises made through branding, advertising, offers, products and services, but the most important is how they are delivered: easiness in using the services or products, promptness and efficiency in dealing with customers before and after purchase. [1] - [11] In the context of an environment influenced to a great extent by the evolution of technologies, but also by the accelerated dynamics regarding legislation (Payment Directive II, Directive 2014/92/EU and competition, a traditional commercial bank must be extremely careful and competent to build and plan the present and future experiences offered to customers. Given the complexity of the structure of a traditional bank, an essential point in the performance strategy must be the improvement of the Customer experienced experience in dealing with the bank. The positive experience becomes defining both for customer loyality and to attract new customers. The segregation of responsibilities and at the same time harmonization of flows between the various structures of traditional banks (front-office- FO; middle-office-MO; back-office-BO becomes the main challenge of the moment in order to provide the customer with the much desired positive experience. Affected at the global and European level by the dynamics of legislative changes, as well as by the business models that rely on the outsourcing of some positions, the back-office and middle office do not enjoy the same rhythm of evolution and support found in the front office, resulting in incoherent customer experiences and, at the same time, preventing the industry's capacity to attract, retain and delight the customers. In order to improve the level of customer experience, the banks must focus more on

Improving electronic customers' profile in recommender systems using data mining techniques

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Julashokri

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Recommender systems are tools for realization one to one marketing. Recommender systems are systems, which attract, retain, and develop customers. Recommender systems use several ways to make recommendations. Two ways are using more than the others: collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. In this study, a recommender system model based on collaborative filtering has proposed. Proposed model was endeavored to improve the customer profile in collaborative systems to enhance the recommender system efficiency. This improvement was done using time context and group preferences. Experimental results show that the proposed model has a better recommendation performance than existing models.

A CBR-Based and MAHP-Based Customer Value Prediction Model for New Product Development

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yu-Jie; Luo, Xin-xing; Deng, Li

2014-01-01

In the fierce market environment, the enterprise which wants to meet customer needs and boost its market profit and share must focus on the new product development. To overcome the limitations of previous research, Chan et al. proposed a dynamic decision support system to predict the customer lifetime value (CLV) for new product development. However, to better meet the customer needs, there are still some deficiencies in their model, so this study proposes a CBR-based and MAHP-based customer value prediction model for a new product (C&M-CVPM). CBR (case based reasoning) can reduce experts' workload and evaluation time, while MAHP (multiplicative analytic hierarchy process) can use actual but average influencing factor's effectiveness in stimulation, and at same time C&M-CVPM uses dynamic customers' transition probability which is more close to reality. This study not only introduces the realization of CBR and MAHP, but also elaborates C&M-CVPM's three main modules. The application of the proposed model is illustrated and confirmed to be sensible and convincing through a stimulation experiment. PMID:25162050

Service Design based Co-creation framework for customer oriented product development in B2B context

OpenAIRE

Singh, Nidhi Rakesh

2016-01-01

In today’s ICT marketplace, customers have easy access to a lot of information about a company and its competitors’ products. Customers are using this information to only purchase a product which completely matches their requirement. In this challenging competitive landscape, developing products without fully understanding customer requirements does not re-main an option for companies anymore. Companies are using different approaches to under-stand customers’ requirements and to become more c...

Co-creation: Customer Integration in Social Media Based Product and Service Development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lorenzo Romero, Carlota; Constantinides, Efthymios; Brünink, Leonine A.

2014-01-01

Due to the rising level of global competition as well as a fast-growing number of innovations organizations are nowadays forced to find new ways to attract, gain and sustain loyal customers in order to stay competitive. Co-creation, the active involvement of customers in the process of new product

Customer Satisfaction Index Model on Three Level Of Socioeconomic Status In Bogor Case Study: Customer Satisfaction on Branded Cooking Oil Product

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Budi Setiawan

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Customer satisfaction index models have been developed in many countries, including Indonesia. Those models were commonly not focused on the socioeconomic status (SES of the customer, sothis condition could be a research gap. The aims of this research is to analyze the customer satisfaction index model of branded cooking oil product in Bogor, Indonesia based on SES established from the household monthly routine consumption. Questionnaires were used as primary data collection instrument in this study, while data analysis was carried out with variance based structural equation modeling (SEM which is also known as Partial Least Square (PLS model, and Kruskall Wallis nonparametric test. Perceived quality, perceived value and customer expectation as were significantly influencing the customer satisfaction construct in the structural model. This study also concluded that there is different level of overall customer satisfaction on the three levels of customer’s SES

A Collaborative Platform to Support the Enterprise 2.0 in Active Interactions with Customers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Domenico CONSOLI

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years a new model of Enterprise 2.0, which interacts actively with customers using web 2.0 tools (chat, forum, blog, wiki, is developing. The enterprises, listening opinions and suggestions of customers, can improve the product/service. For a company, customer's opinions are very important both for the improvement of products and also for the reinforcement of the customer loyalty. The customer will be motivated to be loyal if the enterprise shows a strong attention to his/her needs. This paper presents a model of a collaborative and interactive platform that supports the Enterprise 2.0 in the management of communications and relationships with all stakeholder of the supply chain and in particular with customers. A good e-reputation of the company improves business performances.

Customers' preferences with regard to attributes of electric power products; Kundenpraeferenzen fuer leistungsrelevante Attribute von Stromprodukten

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Burkhalter, Andreas; Kaenzig, Josef; Wuestenhagen, Rolf [Univ. St. Gallen (Switzerland). Inst. fuer Wirtschaft und Oekologie

2009-06-15

This article addresses whether standard electricity products in Switzerland meet the preferences of private customers. To determine customers' preferred electricity product we conducted an online survey with choice experiments implying 9420 choice decisions by 628 respondents in Switzerland. Using hierarchical Bayes estimation we determined customer preferences and the importance of individual product attributes in product choice. This procedure makes it possible to calculate part worth utilities for product attributes and to derive customers' implicit willingness to pay. The ''electricity mix'' had the most important influence on choice decisions, followed by ''monthly electricity costs'' and the ''location of the electricity generation''. The current Swiss electricity mix which consists of mainly nuclear and hydro power was only rated second to last in a comparison of five alternative mixes. Customers clearly prefer electricity mixes containing green energy. Findings of this study reveal strategic options for product design, positioning, and marketing for a liberalized electricity market. (orig.)

The Use of the Kano Model to Enhance Customer Satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Južnik Rotar Laura

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Background/purpose: The interest of measuring customer satisfaction is reflected in its ability to gain customer loyalty, enhance favourable word of mouth, lead to repeat purchases and improve a company’s market share and profitability. The issue of integrating the Kano model of customer satisfaction with other models and tools to support development or improvement of a product, or to determine market strategies, is relatively unexplored in the Slovenian sector. This research aims to construct the Kano model in order to enhance customer satisfaction in the case of home appliances.

Framework for product knowledge and product related knowledge which supports product modelling for mass customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Riis, Jesper; Hansen, Benjamin Loer; Hvam, Lars

2003-01-01

on experience from product modelling projects in several companies. Among them for example companies manufacturing electronic switchboards, spray dryer systems and air conditioning equipment. The framework is divided into three views: the product knowledge view, the life phase system view and the transformation...... and personalization. The framework for product knowledge and product related knowledge is based on the following theories: axiomatic design, technical systems, theory of domains, theory of structuring, theory of properties and the framework for the content of product and product related models. The framework is built......The article presents a framework for product knowledge and product related knowledge which can be used to support the product modelling process which is needed for developing IT systems. These IT systems are important tools for many companies when they aim at achieving mass customization...

Sustainability Evaluation of Mass Customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brunø, Thomas Ditlev; Nielsen, Kjeld; Taps, Stig B.

2013-01-01

This paper addresses the issue whether the concepts mass customization and sustainability are fundamentally compatible by asking the question: can a mass customized product be sustainable? Some factors indicate that mass customized products are less sustainable than standardized products; however...... other factors suggest the opposite. This paper explores these factors during three life cycle phases for a product: Production, Use and End of Life. It is concluded that there is not an unambiguous causal relationship between mass customization and sustainability; however several factors unique to mass...... customized products are essential to consider during product development....

Customer Perception On Products Pricing Service Quality Towards Customers Quality Relationships And Loyalty Of Domestic Airlines Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hasniaty

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Aviation services industry is an important industry that holds Indonesia. Indonesia has approximately 17 thousand islands scattered with a long coastline over 5000 kilometers. Air transport is an essential component for connecting approximately 250 million people with a population growth of 1.49 percent annually. Air transport services become business areas that are needed by todays modern society. This study aims to quantify the relationship between customer perceptions on the concept or product price service quality and relationship quality on customer loyalty of domestic airline in Indonesia. This study took a sample of 300 respondents. The data analyzed using SEM Structural Equation Modeling. The results of this study is theoretical findings suggests that the product has a significant positive effect on trust customer satisfaction and loyalty but positive effect is insignificant on commitment. The price has significant positive effect on trust commitment satisfaction but positive effect is insignificant on loyalty. Service quality has a significant positive effect on trust commitment satisfaction but positive effect is insignificant on loyalty. Trust has significant positive effect on satisfaction and loyalty. Commitment has significant positive effect on loyalty but positive effect is insignificant on loyalty. Satisfaction has significant positive effect on satisfaction and loyalty.

Influence of Customer Quality Perception on the Effectiveness of Commercial Stimuli for Electronic Products

Science.gov (United States)

Garrido-Morgado, Álvaro; González-Benito, Óscar; Martos-Partal, Mercedes

2016-01-01

Creating and maintaining customer loyalty are strategic requirements for modern business. In the current competitive context, product quality, and brand experience are crucial in building and maintaining customer loyalty. Consumer loyalty, which may be classified into cognitive loyalty and affective loyalty, is related to customers' quality perception. Cue utilization theory distinguishes two dimensions for perceived quality, extrinsic quality—linked to the brand—and intrinsic quality—related with internal product characteristics. We propose that (i) cognitive loyalty is more influenced by intrinsic product quality whereas extrinsic product quality (brand name) is more salient for affective loyalty and, (ii) different commercial stimuli have a differential effectiveness on intrinsic and extrinsic perceived quality. In fact, in this study, we analyze how perceived quality dimensions may influence the effectiveness of two different commercial stimuli: displays and advertising flyers. While displays work within the point of sale under time-constrained conditions where consumers are more likely to use heuristics to simplify their decisions, advertising flyers work outside of the point of sale under low time-constrained conditions, and therefore favor a more reasoned purchase decision where systematic processing will be more likely. We analyze the role of quality perception in determining the effectiveness of both these commercial stimuli for selling products that induce high purchase involvement and perceived risk. The empirical analysis focuses on computer products sold by one of Europe's largest computer retailers and it combines scanner, observational, and survey data. The results show that both dimensions of quality perceptions moderate the influence of displays and advertising flyers on sales, but their impact is different on each commercial stimuli. Extrinsic quality perception increases to a greater extent the effect of displays due to the use of a brand

A STUDY ON THE EVALUATION OF CUSTOMERS' SATISFACTION - THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUALITY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dauw-Song Zhu

2010-06-01

Full Text Available As stated by the recent report published by Global Industry Analysts Inc. (GIA, driven by widespread consumer awareness, lifestyle trends and growing compatibility among equipments because of standardization, the world digital camera market is projected to reach 122 million units by the year 2010. The traditional one-way quality model is focused on one particular quality element; only when the element is present are customers satisfied, and viceversa. Using the traditional way to improve customer satisfaction, it is possible that the customer will not be satisfied with a certain quality element, or maybe the customer satisfaction target will be over-fulfilled (Tan & Shen, 2000. Kano's model provides an effective approach to categorizing the customer attributes into different types. Professor Kano has developed a methodology to identify which customer attributes are must-be, which are one-dimensional and which are attractive. Therefore, understanding the product quality attribute is beneficial to improvement of quality as well as product development. Therefore, the purposes of this article are 1. To classify customer attributes into Kano categories. 2. To apply IPA to analyze the correlation between importance and satisfaction toward product attributes. 3. To exam a significant difference between demographic characteristics and Kano's quality requirements. The findings are as follows: 1. Kano' model successful classifying product features of digital cameras. Kano's quality requirements are also correlated with importance and satisfaction of IPA analysis. 2. When quality have improved for all product features, after sales services, Image Stabilizer and Recording Mode will lead to most satisfaction for all users based on customer satisfaction coefficient. 3. Demographical characteristics have significantly influenced perceived quality requirement for digital camera users.

Influence of Customer Focused Mission Statement on Customer Satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chijioke Nwachukwu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of customer‑focused mission statements on customer satisfaction in selected cell phone manufacturing companies in the United States. The study employed content analysis for the mission statement and data from America customer satisfaction index (ACSI. In analysing our data, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression techniques were used. The result showed that product and service, technology, philosophy, self‑concept, and public image mission statement components are strongly positively correlated with customer satisfaction. Customer, survival, growth and profitability and market mission statement components are insignificantly negatively correlated with customer satisfaction. The study, therefore, recommends that companies that want to remain competitive by enhancing customer satisfaction should formulate mission statements from a customer perspective so that they include product and service, technology, philosophy, self‑concept, and public image components. The main limitation of the study represents the sample size and structure. This study empirically investigated the correlation and association of nine mission statement components with customer satisfaction.

Analysis of Customer Loyalty through Total Quality Service, Customer Relationship Management and Customer Satisfaction

Science.gov (United States)

Binsar Kristian P., Feliks Anggia; Panjaitan, Hotman

2014-01-01

This research talks about total quality service and customer relationship management effects toward customer satisfaction and its impact on customer loyalty. Fast food restaurant KFC, always strives to continue to make improvements in total quality service, so that customer satisfaction can be maintained, which in turn will have an impact on…

Interrelationships and consequential effects among technological innovation, service consistency, customer satisfaction and loyalty in banking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asare Yaw Obeng

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The key to long-term success in banking is consistent improvement and delivering of quality product and or value-added service that conform to the expectations of customers. IT-innovative products/services and processes (technological innovation facilitate these key elements of customer satisfaction and critical factors for retaining valued customers. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of technological innovation on service consistency and the consequential effects on customer satisfaction and loyalty covering seven universal banks in Ghana. The results of the empirically tested model reveal new/improved product/process functionalities, service consistency and innovative product/process satisfaction contribute significantly to customer loyalty (p < 0.001. Service consistency has a marginal higher impact (β = .373 on customer loyalty than the others. Product/process quality contributes significantly (with β ranging from .345 to .742 and p < 0.001 to each of the above three antecedents than all other items.

The effects assessment of firm environmental strategy and customer environmental conscious on green product development.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, Ming-Tien; Chuang, Li-Min; Chao, Shu-Tsung; Chang, Hsiao-Ping

2012-07-01

The purpose of this study is to examine why both parties (industry and consumer market) have mutual interests in protecting the environment but they still are hesitant to act green. The study used two-stage sampling from consumer market to depict ideal green product characteristics and reliable toy companies, and visit these companies for the second sample collection to examine whether the organizational eco-innovation strategy with customer value has a positive effect on green product development. In other words, the customer's benefit is an important factor for new product development strategy for green toys. This research shows that the willingness to buy green toys increases if most people in society buy green toys. This represents that customers are environmentally conscious and care about protecting the environment, or buying green toys is the result of a new economic trend and childhood education. The willingness to buy green toys increases if customers think that green products implies an enhancement on new product development to toy manufacturers. Further, if manufacturers are able to manage the difficulty of cooperation with all parties in the supply chain and difficulties related to production, they are willing to adopt customers' perceived value on green toys for their new product development strategy. It is rare to find academic research discussing the perspectives of both consumers and manufacturers in the same study because the research topic is very broad and many conditions must be considered. This research aims to find the effect of consumer-perceived value and company eco-innovation on green product development.

Generative innovation practices, customer creativity, and the adoption of new technology products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tanev, Stoyan; Frederiksen, Marianne Harbo

2014-01-01

to adopt a new practice. The emphasis on adoption merges together innovation and entrepreneurship by shifting the focus from the inventor and the designer, through the entrepreneur, to the ultimate recipient of the innovative outcomes. Looking at customers as co-creators is critically important......: i) the increasing degree of complexity of everyday technological products requires a higher degree of creativity by customers to adopt; and ii) customer creativity is not only a function of user-technology interaction, it is a function of the various actors in the interactive environment surrounding...

Pengaruh e-CRM dan Service Quality terhadap Customer Satisfaction dan Dampaknya terhadap Customer Loyalty pada PT XL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marshellina Marshellina

2013-11-01

Full Text Available This study aims to look at the influence and how much the influence of e-CRM (X1 and Quality of Service (X2 for Customer Satisfaction (Y that impact on Customer Loyalty (Z at PT XL. Data collection techniques were with questionnaires, the number of population in this study was approximately three millionrespondents, ie customers who use the product XL in West Jakarta, because the area most widely uses XL provider. Total sample was 100 respondents and the technique used was simple random sampling. The method used in this study was Pearson correlation and path analysis. Based on the results of data analysis, structural equation is Y = 0.310 + 0.330 X1 + X2 0.874 and Z = 0.005 X1 + X2 + 0.449 -0.070 + 0.903 Y, which Electronic Customer Relationship Management and the quality of service have yet to be effective in providing a positive influence for customer loyalty directly, but it must go through prior customer satisfaction as an intervening variable. Therefore, more companies should make improvements to the new way of communicating with customers via electronic media because it gives quite effective results for customer satisfaction in PT XL. Inaddition, PT XL should provide training and better development for the employees working in the company to improve the quality of service that can create customer loyalty.

TECHNICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS OF PACKAGING PRODUCTION PROCESS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Rudawska

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Due to customer driven economies, today’s world markets are characterized by high fluctuations in market demand and the frequent arrival of new technologies and new products. To stay competitive in such markets manufacturing companies require continuous improvements both in technical and organizational areas of their activity. The paper presents results of the diagnosis provided in the manufacturing area of the company producing cardboard packages and recommendations to make the production process more efficient. Especially, among the proposed technical and organizational recommendations the most important ones are: automation of certain elements of the production process and changes in production plant layout.

Analisis Pengaruh E-Service Quality terhadap Customer Satisfaction yang Berdampak pada Customer Loyalty PT Bayu Buana Travel Tbk

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hansel Jonathan

2013-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of e-service quality on customer satisfaction and its impact on customer loyalty of PT Bayu Buana Travel, Tbk. With non-probability technique (census, questionnaires were collected and used in data processing using Structural Equation Modeling with WarpPLS program and Importance Performance Analysis methods. Based on this research, it was found that e-service quality has an influence on customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction has an influence on customer loyalty, e-service quality has an influence on customer loyalty, and e-service quality and customer satisfaction has an influence on customer loyalty. The e-service quality attributes, such as the website providing accurate information, the website having a good reputation, all online payment be confirmed, the website easy to use, and the products/services on the website delivered according to the time, need to be improved and enhanced.

Applications of Mass Customization Production Mode in Chinese Steel Industry

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

ZhouShichun; DingJianhua; ChenChao

2005-01-01

In this paper, the conflict between individual needs of market and the efficient mass production requirement of manufacture under the background of market globalization is discussed, a trend that the main production mode for domestic steel industry should be the mass customization is pointed out, and the problems to be solved for domestic enterprise are analyzed. Summarizing the practice of Baosteel Co. LTD on the new production mode, the achievements and experiences are presented.

Mass Customization Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Friedrich, Gerhard

Topics of the IMCM’08 & PETO’08 and this book are: Mass customization in service, mass customizing financial services, mass customization in supply networks, implementation issues in logistics, product life cycle and mass customization. The research field of mass customization is more than 15 years...

Pengaruh Customer Perceived Value Terhadap Customer Satisfaction PT. Xyz

OpenAIRE

Sucahyo, Martinus Wilman

2017-01-01

Penelitian ini membahas tentang Customer Perceived Value terhadap Customer Satisfaction PT. XYZ. Dalam penelitian ini, Customer Perceived Value diukur melalui dimensi Core Product Value, Service Value dan Relationship Value. Masing-masing dimensi ini akan diuji pengaruhnya terhadap Customer Satisfaction, baik secara simultan maupun secara parsial, serta dimensi mana yang paling berpengaruh terhadap Customer Satisfaction. Sampel penelitian berjumlah 100 pelanggan PT. XYZ. Data penelitian diola...

Automatic user customization for improving the performance of a self-paced brain interface system.

Science.gov (United States)

Fatourechi, Mehrdad; Bashashati, Ali; Birch, Gary E; Ward, Rabab K

2006-12-01

Customizing the parameter values of brain interface (BI) systems by a human expert has the advantage of being fast and computationally efficient. However, as the number of users and EEG channels grows, this process becomes increasingly time consuming and exhausting. Manual customization also introduces inaccuracies in the estimation of the parameter values. In this paper, the performance of a self-paced BI system whose design parameter values were automatically user customized using a genetic algorithm (GA) is studied. The GA automatically estimates the shapes of movement-related potentials (MRPs), whose features are then extracted to drive the BI. Offline analysis of the data of eight subjects revealed that automatic user customization improved the true positive (TP) rate of the system by an average of 6.68% over that whose customization was carried out by a human expert, i.e., by visually inspecting the MRP templates. On average, the best improvement in the TP rate (an average of 9.82%) was achieved for four individuals with spinal cord injury. In this case, the visual estimation of the parameter values of the MRP templates was very difficult because of the highly noisy nature of the EEG signals. For four able-bodied subjects, for which the MRP templates were less noisy, the automatic user customization led to an average improvement of 3.58% in the TP rate. The results also show that the inter-subject variability of the TP rate is also reduced compared to the case when user customization is carried out by a human expert. These findings provide some primary evidence that automatic user customization leads to beneficial results in the design of a self-paced BI for individuals with spinal cord injury.

How Complaining Customers Make Companies Listen and Influence Product Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, John K.; Gasparin, Marta; Varnes, Claus

2016-01-01

processes, mobilised a heterogeneous group of consumers into a loosely connected hybrid collective. The spokesperson acted on behalf of the hybrid collective and put growing pressure on a multinational company, influencing its decision making. In this case, the complaining customer did not exit, nor did he......The analysis in this paper shows how complaining customers can make companies listen to them by spurring the mobilisation of various actors into a hybrid collective strong enough to influence companies’ product development. Customers as sources of innovation have been analysed previously...... in the literature, whereas the process of how complaining users mobilise support to influence companies has received less attention and is not well understood. This study uncovers the processes that made it possible for a 17-year-old Norwegian to become pivotal in constructing a problematisation, which emerged...

A Review Of CEM: Customer Engagement as Innovation Co-Creator

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elidjen Elidjen

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Competition is very tight causing companies looking for a competitive edge, both in the product packaging and in maintaining good relations with their customers. The management of good relationship is commonly referred to Customer Relationship Management (CRM. In general, CRM is focused on how to market something to customers and obtain value from them by using information technology. However, it ignores customers’ insight that can provide added value to the company's profits. That is what causes the need for Customer Experience Management (CEM to handle the experience of customers to improve value for customers so that customers become loyal. More useful definition of CEM is handling customer interactions to build brand equity and increase the long-term profitability. The five-element approach known as SMART (strategy, metrics; alignment, redesign and technology has a positive impact for the company. In the end customers can actualize themselves, through a company's brand and products.

Creativity and innovation by empowering the customer: The case of Mulino Bianco. Part II: The digital customer value added

Science.gov (United States)

Bujor, A.; Avasilcăi, S.

2015-11-01

The terms of creativity, co-creation, creative industries, innovation, and coinnovation are more and more used nowadays. While co-creation offers the possibility and encourages a more active involvement from the customers to create value rich experiences, innovation is responsible for the little improvements made for a better life, to grow a business, to improve products, services or company's productivity. Either customers, current and potential, or stakeholders’ involvement into innovation activities, through their creativity, represent an important way of value creation, of actions’ performance that increases the worth of goods, services, or business as a whole. More and more, different size businesses gather ideas for innovation from customers / stakeholders by involving them into the early stages of the innovation process. Actually, it has been shown that their ideas sketch their needs and wishes, and have been described as “need information”. Customers and stakeholders, in general, also offer ideas that have been called “solution information”, which represents, not only need information, but also customer-based proposals that describe how ideas can be transformed into marketable products. The term of creative industries refers to those goods that can technically be reproduced, industrially produced, and commercially sold, this being one of the many definitions found in the literature. Mulino Bianco was first launched in Italy, being one of the value brands of Barilla Group, which we can say, according to the Italian definition and classification, it belongs to creative industries: industry of food and taste. Even though Barilla Group's Research & Development department does its job very efficiently, developing and creating new products under different brands, lately a key strategy for the Group and for Mulino Bianco, by default, is customers’ pro-active involvement in products’ development or creation. One of the tools used for this is the

An Intelligent Method of Product Scheme Design Based on Product Gene

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qing Song Ai

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, in order to have some featured products, many customers tend to buy customized products instead of buying common ones in supermarket. The manufacturing enterprises, with the purpose of improving their competitiveness, are focusing on providing customized products with high quality and low cost as well. At present, how to produce customized products rapidly and cheaply has been the key challenge to manufacturing enterprises. In this paper, an intelligent modeling approach applied to supporting the modeling of customized products is proposed, which may improve the efficiency during the product design process. Specifically, the product gene (PG method, which is an analogy of biological evolution in engineering area, is employed to model products in a new way. Based on product gene, we focus on the intelligent modeling method to generate product schemes rapidly and automatically. The process of our research includes three steps: (1 develop a product gene model for customized products; (2 find the obtainment and storage method for product gene; and (3 propose a specific genetic algorithm used for calculating the solution of customized product and generating new product schemes. Finally, a case study is applied to test the usefulness of our study.

Customer Developing In Using the Islamic Banking Product at Bank Syariah Mandiri Tbk, Tegal Branch

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Makmur Sujarwo

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This research is aimed to find out the influences of perception, attitude, motivation, religiousness and learning towards the customer's decision in choosing the islamic banking product. This research sample is the customer's Bank Syariah Mandiri Tegal. The total samples are 105 people from Tegal, Tegal Regency and Brebes Regency. The respondent's answers towards closed questions related to the studied variable in this research, then were analyzed by using double linear regression test, while the answers to the opened questions were analyzed qualitatively. The analysis result showed that the motivation and learning variables give positive and significant affect towards the customer's decision in choosing islamic banking product. Meanwhile, the perception, attitude, and religiousness variables do not give any affect towards the customer's decision.

Customer satisfaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Vukmir, Rade B

2006-01-01

This paper seeks to present an analysis of the literature examining objective information concerning the subject of customer service, as it applies to the current medical practice. Hopefully, this information will be synthesized to generate a cogent approach to correlate customer service with quality. Articles were obtained by an English language search of MEDLINE from January 1976 to July 2005. This computerized search was supplemented with literature from the author's personal collection of peer-reviewed articles on customer service in a medical setting. This information was presented in a qualitative fashion. There is a significant lack of objective data correlating customer service objectives, patient satisfaction and quality of care. Patients present predominantly for the convenience of emergency department care. Specifics of satisfaction are directed to the timing, and amount of "caring". Demographic correlates including symptom presentation, practice style, location and physician issues directly impact on satisfaction. It is most helpful to develop a productive plan for the "difficult patient", emphasizing communication and empathy. Profiling of the customer satisfaction experience is best accomplished by examining the specifics of satisfaction, nature of the ED patient, demographic profile, symptom presentation and physician interventions emphasizing communication--especially with the difficult patient. The current emergency medicine customer service dilemmas are a complex interaction of both patient and physician factors specifically targeting both efficiency and patient satisfaction. Awareness of these issues particular to the emergency patient can help to maximize efficiency, minimize subsequent medicolegal risk and improve patient care if a tailored management plan is formulated.

CEM: Increasing productivity through the management and monitoring of experiences provided to customers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adriana Arineli

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Dealing with intangible and so subtle experience is unusual and a huge challenge for management that is not used to measure what has no numbers, but maybe they need to see beyond the obvious and accessible statistics. Recently, several studies point to the importance of customer experience management (CEM. However, if the CEM is a strategy to focus on operations and processes of a business around the customers’ experiences with the company, it is essential to seek grants to structure it and find out its effectiveness. This study examines the issues involved in offering superior customer experiences on fashion retail stores in Brazil, identifying the relation between productivity and CEM. Through a research with managers of three important Brazilian clothing retail chains, it was possible to analyze the aspects that impact on the customer experience and their relevance. A questionnaire was applied to evaluate 23 variables that make up the experience of the customer and their impact on increasing productivity. Some statistical techniques were used for data processing and it was possible to realize that only 4 of the 23 items were not relevant for customer experience. It can be concluded that CEM is effective in increasing productivity and can be used as a guideline matrix management in decision-making to promote superior customer experiences. Specific characteristics of each segment suggest different impacts in every aspect. Therefore, it is crucial that each segment review its own variables that will structure the CEM. Even assuming that it is defiant see beyond the obvious, maybe this is the necessary opportunity to create real competitive advantage and longevity for companies that want to stand out and be successful over time.

Voice of the customer---a roadmap for service improvement.

Science.gov (United States)

Uberoi, Ravinder S; Nayak, Yogamaya; Sachdeva, Pritindira; Sibal, Anupam

2013-01-01

Patient satisfaction surveys help a great deal in identifying ways of improving a hospital's services. Ultimately, that translates into better care and happier patients. Moreover, it shows the staff and the community that the hospital is serious about quality and is looking for ways to improve. This article describes how the Voice of the Customer (VOC) Survey can be used as a tool for improving services. Regular monitoring of VOC scores is essential for minimizing the gaps between service delivery and patient expectations. The present study showcases the various initiatives undertaken to improve the VOC scores from an original 4.40 to 4.77 (on a 5 point scale) at the hospital under study.

The Effects of Customer Value and Switching Barrier to Customer Loyalty at PT. Telkomsel Manado

OpenAIRE

Mintje, Saniati Muliani M.

2013-01-01

Customer value is customer's perceived preference for and evaluation of those product or service. It is one of factor that can attract customers. While, switching barrier is difficult of switch product or service by a customer who is not satisfied with the existing service. It is a factor that can keep customers. so, with definition of Customer Value and Switching barrier above, it can concluded that, by creating Customer value and Switching Barrier it can create customer loyalty. The Pur...

Service Co-Production, Customer Efficiency and Market Competition

OpenAIRE

Mei Xue; Patrick T. Harker

2003-01-01

Customers’ participation in service co-production processes has been increasing with the rapid development of self-service technologies and business models that rely on self-service as the main service delivery channel. However, little is known about how the level of participation of customers in service delivery processes influences the competition among service providers. In this paper, a game-theoretic model is developed to study the competition among service providers when selfservice is ...

Emotion Analysis of Telephone Complaints from Customer Based on Affective Computing

OpenAIRE

Gong, Shuangping; Dai, Yonghui; Ji, Jun; Wang, Jinzhao; Sun, Hai

2015-01-01

Customer complaint has been the important feedback for modern enterprises to improve their product and service quality as well as the customer's loyalty. As one of the commonly used manners in customer complaint, telephone communication carries rich emotional information of speeches, which provides valuable resources for perceiving the customer's satisfaction and studying the complaint handling skills. This paper studies the characteristics of telephone complaint speeches and proposes an anal...

Trends in Customer Services and Interfunctional Coordination by Manufacturers

OpenAIRE

Kaňovská, Lucie; Tomášková, Eva

2015-01-01

The purpose of the paper is to describe the most important trends by manufacturers producing electric equipment and electronic components in the Czech Republic. We focus on customer services and interfunctional coordination (IFC), part of market orientation. We prepared questionnaire in the form of the Likert scale. Sixty companies participated in our research. The crucial trends in customer services are: (1) New products are developed, tested and improved according to customer needs; (2) Res...

Level of customer orientation and customer protection in hotels in Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ćirić Maja

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Hotels present an engine of tourism development. Their standard and orientation towards specific target groups of customers determine the strength of tourism offer. In addition, they contribute to the agricultural development, too, because they are the great buyers of agricultural products. According to official data, the existing potentials of Serbian tourism have been insufficiently valorised and Serbian hotels are in pretty poor condition- compared to international standards. Taking these facts into consideration, we can raise a question whether the key problems of Serbian hotels lie exclusively in inadequate accommodation capacities, or perhaps that there is a lack of customer- oriented business philosophy. Also the question is to what extent the legal regulations contribute to the protection of customer rights and their satisfaction. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain the level of customer orientation in Serbian hotels, so as to find out whether members of hotel staff are acquainted with the notion of customer orientation and determine the degree to which this approach has been applied in practice. Conclusions and recommendations for improvement of competitiveness of hotels in Serbia are derived on the basis of research conducted by interviewing the employees of a sample of hotels in Serbia.

AREVA NP products and services for NPP operation and maintenance improvement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dechelette, Anne; Rat, Guy Le

2009-01-01

AREVA supplies customized services throughout the reactor improvement process according to clients' requirements: safety, performance, availability, obsolescence, operating and maintenance conditions, environment and technical assistance. Form design studies to on site modification and implementation including requalification tests, AREVA, as OEM*, has various products and services in the field of Engineering and Upgrading to satisfy client demands. In keeping with Inpo's AP913 approach, AREVA is particularly skilled in this methodology to help utilities improve availability factor and maintenance programs. AREVA has customized its services to many utilities in cooperating with local partners, suppliers, and engineering service providers through partnerships, consortiums, joint ventures, etc. AREVA's knowledge of the fleet's operation and maintenance experience helps NPP clients to identify the most cost effective improvements and approaches. Different examples of modifications of modifications and improvements performed in France and abroad illustrate AREVA's involvement in the NPP continuous upgrade process

Increasing customer loyalty and customer intimacy by improving the behavior of employees

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Waal, A.A. de; Heijden, B.I.J.M. van der

2016-01-01

- PURPOSE - One of the most important characteristics of high-performance organizations is that these organizations always aim at servicing their customers as best as possible. In practice, this means that the employees of these organizations have to behave toward customers in such a way that these

Consumer Preferences for Mass Customization

NARCIS (Netherlands)

B.G.C. Dellaert (Benedict); S. Stremersch (Stefan)

2004-01-01

textabstractIncreasingly, firms adopt mass customization, which allows consumers to customize products by self-selecting their most preferred composition of the product for a predefined set of modules. For example, PC vendors such as Dell allow customers to customize their PC by choosing the type of

Targeting utility customers to improve energy savings from conservation and efficiency programs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Taylor, Nicholas W.; Jones, Pierce H.; Kipp, M. Jennison

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Improving DSM program impacts by targeting high energy users. • DSM energy savings potential hinges on pre-participation performance. • Targeting can benefit different utilities and energy efficiency programs. • Overall performance can be improved by up to 250% via targeting strategies. - Abstract: Electric utilities, government agencies, and private interests in the US have committed and continue to invest substantial resources – including billions of dollars of financial capital – in the pursuit of energy efficiency and conservation through demand-side management (DSM) programs. While most of these programs are deemed to be cost effective, and therefore in the public interest, opportunities exist to improve cost effectiveness by targeting programs to those customers with the greatest potential for energy savings. This article details an analysis of three DSM programs offered by three Florida municipal electric utilities to explore such opportunities. First, we estimate programs’ energy savings impacts; second, we measure and compare energy savings across subgroups of program participants as determined by their pre-intervention energy performance, and third, we explore potential changes in program impacts that might be realized by targeting specific customers for participation in the DSM programs. All three programs resulted in statistically significant average (per-participant) energy savings, yet average savings varied widely, with the customers who performed best (i.e., most efficient) before the intervention saving the least energy and those who performed worst (i.e., least efficient) before the intervention saving the most. Assessment of alternative program participation scenarios with varying levels of customer targeting suggests that program impacts could be increased by as much as 80% for a professional energy audit program, just over 100% for a high-efficiency heat pump upgrade program, and nearly 250% for an attic insulation

Ways to improve logistics for the benefit of the producers’ foreign customers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

BALASESCU Marius

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study is aimed at the optimization of logistics services for foreign clients. The main objectives of the in vestigation are: the measurement of the logistics service level for a company’s external clients, assessing the current potential of the logistics service strategy offered by the foreign customers’ companies, creating a strategy that targets the improvement of the quality of foreign customer service. The instruments used in the analysis can be classified into three major categories: the company’s economic results expressed by the measurement of such variables as servi ce level, information from foreign customers consisting of their findings on the investigated matters; conceptual resources regarding the analysis of the customer logistics service level .

How to strengthen customer loyalty, using customer segmentation?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MELNIC Elena Lidia

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Do you provide exceptional customer service?”, “Is the customer service in your company extraordinary?” “How to convert satis fied customers into loyal customers?” - are the most frequent questions of today’s managers and have driven the research on this article to getting the answer to a highly important marketing topic “How to strengthen customer loyalty using customer segmentation?”. Anyone who has bought a product or a service has probably suffered at least once from a company’s apparent indifference to what should be its first concern: the customer experiences. If this is the case, the company is in a wrong direction, since loyalty is the most powerful tool in today competitive market. To strengthen the bonds with these high-profit customers, innovative companies are deploying enterprise-wide strategies built on consumer segmentation.

Integrating Customer Intimacy Into Radiology to Improve the Patient Perspective: The Case of Breast Cancer Screening.

Science.gov (United States)

Chhor, Chloe M; Mercado, Cecilia L

2016-02-01

The customer intimacy business model has emerged as a key operational approach for health care organizations as they move toward patient-centered care. The question arises how the customer intimacy approach can be implemented in the clinical setting and whether it can help practitioners address problems and improve quality of care. Breast cancer screening and its emphasis on the patient perspective provides an interesting case study for understanding how the customer intimacy approach can be integrated into radiologic practice to improve the patient experience.

Service quality that improves customer satisfaction in a university: a case study in Institut Teknologi Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Theresia, L.; Bangun, R.

2017-12-01

Universities should provide better service quality to get more customers. The purpose of this study was to find service quality which has impact on the increasing of customer satisfaction in a university. This study is a case study in Institut Teknologi Indonesia (ITI). The result of the study will help ITI to improve its service quality to increase customer satisfaction. This study employs path analysis technique. The data were collected through questionnaires developed from the literature. Questionnaires have two parts namely 1) service quality and 2) customer satisfaction. Service quality is measured through 22 questions with five service quality dimensions: 1) Tangibles, 2) Reliability, 3) Responsiveness, 4) Assurance and 5) Empathy. Customer Satisfaction is measured through 4 questions. The data then are processed by SPSS. The results showed that the students preferred to tangible quality improvement than intangible aspect.

Custom power - the utility solution to distribution power quality

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Woodley, N H [Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pittsburgh, PA (United States)

1997-04-01

The design of custom power products for electric power distribution system was discussed. Problems with power quality that result in loss of production to critical processes are costly and create a problem for the customer as well as the electric utility. Westinghouse has developed power quality improvement equipment for customers and utilities, using new technologies based on power electronics concepts. The Distribution Static Compensator (DSTATCOM) is a fast response, solid-state power controller that provides flexible voltage control for improving power quality at the point of connection to the utility`s 4.16 to 69 kV distribution feeder. STATCOM is a larger version of the DSTATCOM that can be used to solve voltage flicker problems caused by electric arc furnaces. Westinghouse has also developed a Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) which protects a critical customer plant load from power system voltage disturbances. Solid-State Breakers (SSB) have also been developed which offer a solution to many of the distribution system problems that result in voltage sags, swells, and power outages. 6 refs., 8 figs.

Internal Branding: Using Performance Technology To Create an Organization Focused on Customer Value.

Science.gov (United States)

Tosti, Donald T.; Stotz, Rodger

2000-01-01

Presents a performance technology approach to revenue enhancement, with the goal of improving customer retention through building customer value. Topics include internal branding, a way to make sure that what the company delivers matches what's promised in the advertising; product versus service brands; and customer satisfaction, including…

AutoMOPS--B2B and B2C in mask making: mask manufacturing performance and customer satisfaction improvement through better information flow management

Science.gov (United States)

de Ridder, Luc; Filies, Olaf; Rodriguez, Ben; Kuijken, Aart

2001-04-01

Through application of modern supply chain concepts in combination with state-of-the-art information technology, mask manufacturing performance and customer satisfaction can be improved radically. The AutoMOPS solution emphasizes on the elimination of the order verification through paperless, electronically linked information sharing/exchange between chip design, mask production and prototype production stages.

Improving Customer Waiting Time at a DMV Center Using Discrete-Event Simulation

Science.gov (United States)

Arnaout, Georges M.; Bowling, Shannon

2010-01-01

Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) serves a customer base of approximately 5.6 million licensed drivers and ID card holders and 7 million registered vehicle owners. DMV has more daily face-to-face contact with Virginia's citizens than any other state agency [1]. The DMV faces a major difficulty in keeping up with the excessively large customers' arrival rate. The consequences are queues building up, stretching out to the entrance doors (and sometimes even outside) and customers complaining. While the DMV state employees are trying to serve at their fastest pace, the remarkably large queues indicate that there is a serious problem that the DMV faces in its services, which must be dealt with rapidly. Simulation is considered as one of the best tools for evaluating and improving complex systems. In this paper, we use it to model one of the DMV centers located in Norfolk, VA. The simulation model is modeled in Arena 10.0 from Rockwell systems. The data used is collected from experts of the DMV Virginia headquarter located in Richmond. The model created was verified and validated. The intent of this study is to identify key problems causing the delays at the DMV centers and suggest possible solutions to minimize the customers' waiting time. In addition, two tentative hypotheses aiming to improve the model's design are tested and validated.

The Effort to Create Customer Engagement on Customer E_Banking (Empirical Studies on Bank BNI Regional Semarang

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alimuddin Rizal Rivai

2016-12-01

Full Text Available                     This study focused on testing the effect of variable customer value, support systems and knowledge of the customer's products to customer satisfaction and its impact on customer engagement. This study selects the object user's e-banking customers of Bank BNI Regional Semarang. The number of samples in this study of 100 respondents, using purposive sampling technique sampling. Processing data using SPSS version 16.0. Based on a statistical test using linear regression approach, then of seven hypothesis there are two hypotheses were rejected. The hypothesis is rejected is the influence of customer value on customer engagement, and support systems to customer engagement. While five other hypotheses, namely: the influence of the customer value, support systems, knowledge products to the satisfaction of the customer, as well as the effect of product knowledge and customer satisfaction on customer involvement is proven. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that to build customer engagement should be created customer satisfaction. While such satisfaction can be created through providing better customer value, the support system is up to date and easy, and provides knowledge products to customers continuously and thoroughly.

The Service for the Customers of Coal Products in the Context of the Conception of Relationship Marketing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Trushkina Nataliia V.

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The article is aimed at developing approaches to the service for various groups of customers of coal products in the context of the conception of relationship marketing. Content of the term of «service of the customers of coal products» has been clarified. An analysis of the dynamics of volume and structure of coal consumption in Ukraine was carried out. It has been proven that in organizing the marketing processes in terms of coal enterprise activities, it is appropriate to apply the conception of relationship marketing, essence of which is formation of a partnership based on a customer-oriented approach to the service for customers of coal products. A feature of this approach, unlike the existing ones, is the allocation of different groups of consumers of coal products, taking into consideration the volume of their annual demand and the specifics identified. It has been suggested that a systemic, process, and functional approaches to the organization of processes of service for the consumers of coal products be used in a single complex through the implementation of management functions.

IMPROVING BANK QUALITY DIMENSIONS TO INCREASE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lăcrămioara RADOMIR

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is twofold: 1. examine the relationship betweenservice quality dimensions and customer satisfaction with bank territorialunits; 2. establish which quality measure method out of the four considered inthis study should be applied in order to better determine the areas that needfurther improvement and investment. In this respect, we performed PrincipalComponent Regression (PCR and considered direct importance andperformance measures as well. Our results reveal that human resourceshave the greatest impact on customers’ satisfaction with bank territorial unitsand that both “Convenience and Efficiency” and “Bank personnel” are thedimensions that bank management should consider in their efforts to improveand maintain the service quality level. To the best of our knowledge, this isthe first study which tries to emphasize the relationship between servicequality dimensions and Romanian customers’ satisfaction with bank territorialunits. The main limit of the study lies in the fact that data were collectedamong the customers of a single bank. Nevertheless, it provides valuableinformation about the Romanian market and ought to be considered astarting point for further studies.

Improving dose homogeneity in routine head and neck radiotherapy with custom 3-D compensation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Harari, P.M.; Sharda, N.N.; Brock, L.K.; Paliwal, B.R.

1998-01-01

Background and purpose: Anatomic contour irregularity and tissue inhomogeneity can lead to significant radiation dose variation across the complex treatment volumes found in the head and neck (HandN) region. This dose inhomogeneity can routinely create focal hot or cold spots of 10-20% despite beam shaping with blocks or beam modification with wedges. Since 1992, we have implemented the routine use of 3-D custom tissue compensators fabricated directly from CT scan contour data obtained in the treatment position in order to improve dose uniformity in patients with tumors of the HandN. Materials and methods: Between July 1992 and January 1997, 160 patients receiving comprehensive HandN radiotherapy had 3-D custom compensators fabricated for their treatment course. Detailed dosimetric records have been analyzed for 30 cases. Dose uniformity across the treatment volume and clinically relevant maximum doses to selected anatomic sub-sites were examined with custom-compensated, uncompensated and optimally-wedged plans. Results: The use of 3-D custom compensators resulted in an average reduction of dose variance across the treatment volume from 19±4% for the uncompensated plans to 5±2% with the use of 3-D compensators. Optimally-wedged plans were variable, but on average a 10±3% dose variance was noted. For comprehensive HandN treatment which encompassed the larynx within the primary field design, the peak doses delivered were reduced by 5-15% with 3-D custom compensation as compared to optimal wedging. Conclusions: The use of 3-D custom tissue compensation can improve dose homogeneity within the treatment volume for HandN cancer patients. Maximum doses to clinically important structures which often receive greater than 105-110% of the prescribed dose are routinely reduced with the use of 3-D custom compensators. Improved dose uniformity across the treatment volume can reduce normal tissue complication profiles and potentially allow for delivery of higher total doses in

Preliminary Study on Kano Model in the Conceptual Design Activities for Product Lifecycle Improvement

Science.gov (United States)

Fahrul Hassan, Mohd; Rahman, M. R. A.; Arifin, A. M. T.; Ismail, A. E.; Rasidi Ibrahim, M.; Zulafif Rahim, M.; Fauzi Ahmad, Md

2017-08-01

Product manufactured with short life cycle had only one major issue, it can lead to increasing volume of waste. Day by day, this untreated waste had consumed many landfill spaces, waiting for any possible alternatives. Lack of product recovery knowledge and recyclability features imprinted into product design are one of the main reason behind all this. Sustainable awareness aspect should not just be implied into people’s mind, but also onto product design. This paper presents a preliminary study on Kano model method in the conceptual design activities to improve product lifecycle. Kano model is a survey-type method, used to analyze and distinguished product qualities or features, also how the customers may have perceived them. Three important attributes of Kano model are performance, attractive and must-be. The proposed approach enables better understanding of customer requirements while providing a way for Kano model to be integrated into engineering design to improve product’s end-of-life. Further works will be continued to provide a better lifecycle option (increase percentage of reuse, remanufacture or recycle, whereby decrease percentage of waste) of a product using Kano model approach.

A framework for improving access and customer service times in health care: application and analysis at the UCLA Medical Center.

Science.gov (United States)

Duda, Catherine; Rajaram, Kumar; Barz, Christiane; Rosenthal, J Thomas

2013-01-01

There has been an increasing emphasis on health care efficiency and costs and on improving quality in health care settings such as hospitals or clinics. However, there has not been sufficient work on methods of improving access and customer service times in health care settings. The study develops a framework for improving access and customer service time for health care settings. In the framework, the operational concept of the bottleneck is synthesized with queuing theory to improve access and reduce customer service times without reduction in clinical quality. The framework is applied at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to determine the drivers for access and customer service times and then provides guidelines on how to improve these drivers. Validation using simulation techniques shows significant potential for reducing customer service times and increasing access at this institution. Finally, the study provides several practice implications that could be used to improve access and customer service times without reduction in clinical quality across a range of health care settings from large hospitals to small community clinics.

Focusing on customer service.

Science.gov (United States)

1996-01-01

This booklet is devoted to a consideration of how good customer service in family planning programs can generate demand for products and services, bring customers back, and reduce costs. Customer service is defined as increasing client satisfaction through continuous concern for client preferences, staff accountability to clients, and respect for the rights of clients. Issues discussed include the introduction of a customer service approach and gaining staff commitment. The experience of PROSALUD in Bolivia in recruiting appropriate staff, supervising staff, soliciting client feedback, and marketing services is offered as an example of a successful customer service approach. The key customer service functions are described as 1) establishing a welcoming atmosphere, 2) streamlining client flow, 3) personalizing client services, and 4) organizing and providing clear information to clients. The role of the manager in developing procedures is explored, and the COPE (Client-Oriented Provider-Efficient) process is presented as a good way to begin to make improvements. Techniques in staff training in customer service include brainstorming, role playing, using case studies (examples of which are provided), and engaging in practice sessions. Training also leads to the development of effective customer service attitudes, and the differences between these and organizational/staff-focused attitudes are illustrated in a chart. The use of communication skills (asking open-ended questions, helping clients express their concerns, engaging in active listening, and handling difficult situations) is considered. Good recovery skills are important when things go wrong. Gathering and using client feedback is the next topic considered. This involves identifying, recording, and discussing customer service issues as well as taking action on these issues and evaluating the results. The booklet ends by providing a sample of customer service indicators, considering the maintenance of a

How Customers Choose Hotels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hera Oktadiana

2011-05-01

Full Text Available In the advancement of hospitality industry, thus it is important for hotel sales and marketing to understand the customer behavior in order to create effective marketing. Factors that influence customer behavior as individuality consist of personal and interpersonal factors. Personal factors include the needs, wants, motivation, perception, learning, personality, lifestyle, and self-concept. Meanwhile, interpersonal factors come from culture and sub-culture, group references, customers through stages before deciding to purchase. Begin with the awareness about the needs, customers then find information about the product or service that could be used to solve the problems. After having the information, customers select the best product and service before deciding to purchase. After purchasing, the last stage is evaluation of product and service, whether it is satisfying or not.

Customizing CAD system and its application for engineering design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shin, Jeong Ho; Kwak, Byung Man

2003-01-01

The computer is an important tool to design an engineering system and CAD systems are widely used for various design practice. To meet the market requirements, the old mass production system is being changed into the mass customization system. As for CAD systems, it is increasingly required to extend, automate, and customize a wide range of functionality. This article describes the state-of-the-art of the principal technologies for customizing CAD systems. And we have implemented an application that enables the parametric design by directly inputting numerical values of parameters for a CAD model. Based on this application, we have developed another system that makes it possible sharing of part family data between SolidEdge and Pro/Engineer. Through customization of CAD systems, it is possible to improve the product quality using external knowledge-based systems or to integrate with external system such as CAE tools. This paper can be a guide for engineering designers who want to customize CAD systems

Sustainable Development of Slow Fashion Businesses: Customer Value Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sojin Jung

2016-06-01

Full Text Available As an alternative to the prevalent fast fashion model, slow fashion has emerged as a way of enhancing sustainability in the fashion industry, yet how slow fashion can enhance profitability is still largely unknown. Based on a customer value creation framework, this study empirically tested a structural model that specified the slow fashion attributes that contribute to creating perceived customer value, which subsequently increases a consumer’s intention to buy and pay a price premium for slow fashion products. An analysis of 221 U.S. consumer data revealed that delivering exclusive product value is significantly critical in creating customer value for slow fashion, and customer value, in turn, positively affects consumers’ purchase intentions. Further analysis also revealed that different slow fashion attributes distinctively affect customer value. This provides potential strategies on which slow fashion businesses can focus to secure an economically sustainable business model, thereby continuously improving environmental and social sustainability with the slow fashion ideal.

Assessing the antecedents of customer loyalty on healthcare insurance products: Service quality; perceived value embedded model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fadi Abdelmuniem Abdelfattah

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This research aim to investigate the influence of service quality attributes towards customers’ loyalty on health insurance products. In addition, this research also tested the mediation role of perceived value in between service quality and customers’ loyalty on health insurance products. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the literature review, this research developed a conceptual model of customers loyalty embedded with service quality and perceived value. The study surveyed 342 healthcare insurance customers. Apart from assessing the reliability and validity of the constructs through confirmatory factor analysis, this research also used structural equation modelling (SEM approach to test the proposed hypothesis. Findings: The results from the inferential statistics revealed that the healthcare insurance customers are highly influenced by service quality followed by the perceived value in reaching their loyalty towards a particular health insurance service provider. Research limitations/implications: The sample for this study is based on health insurance customers only and it is suggested that future studies enlarge the scope to include others type of customers of different insurance products. Practical implications: In order to encourage the customers to more loyal towards their service providers, this research will add value for the mangers to understand the items of service quality and considering the perceived value of the target customers in order to optimize their loyalty. As whole, the outcome of this research will assist managers for better understanding of the customers’ loyalty antecedents under the perspective of healthcare insurance products. Originality/value: This paper has tried to provide a comprehensive understanding about customers’ loyalty under the perspective of service quality and perceived values context in the Malaysian health care insurance industry. Since there was a lack of such research in

Competitive Effects of Mass Customization

OpenAIRE

Oksana Loginova

2010-01-01

Earlier theoretical literature on mass customization maintains that customization reduces product differentiation and intensifies price competition. In contrast, operations management studies argue that customization serves primarily to differentiate a company from its competitors. Interactive involvement of the customer in product design creates an affective relationship with the firm, relaxing price competition. This paper provides a model that incorporates consumer involvement to explain t...

Take Five for Customer Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura J. Ax-Fultz

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Businesses leverage excellent customer service to improve profitability. Although not profit-driven, libraries should leverage excellent customer service to achieve their unique missions. Evaluating and improving customer service practices will help a library determine if it is successfully serving its customers. The library should review three areas to improve customer service: the physical space of the library, how library employees work with library policies, and the communication skills of the library staff. By using the Take Five model, the library can make immediate, no-cost changes or plan for future improvements by taking just five minutes, every day, to assess specific areas. Over a few weeks or months, these small changes will result in better customer service.

Does Innovating Customer Relationship Management Improve Firm Performance?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Geersbro, Jens; Ritter, Thomas

Based on an empirical study of more than 400 B2B firms, this paper investigates the role of innovating a firm’s customer relationship management capability on firm performance. There is a lot of evidence for the positive impact of customer relationship management capability on firm performance....... This paper advances this stream of literature by analyzing whether or not investments into developing a firm’s customer relationship capability increase firm performance. The findings illustrate that although relationship management innovation (defined as new (to the firm) processes, systems and tools...... for relationship management) has a positive correlation with firm performance, the impact is fully mediated by the firms’ relationship management capability. The paper also identifies internal and external drivers of customer relationship management innovation. Not surprisingly customer and competitor dynamics...

Smart Product Design and Production Control for Effective Mass Customization in the Industry 4.0 Concept

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zawadzki Przemysław

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The paper presents a general concept of smart design and production control as key elements for efficient operation of a smart factory. The authors present various techniques that aid the design process of individualized products and organization of their production in the context of realization of the mass customization strategy, which allows a shortened time of development for a new product. Particular attention was paid to integration of additive manufacturing technologies and virtual reality techniques, which are a base of the so-called hybrid prototyping.

Frontline CALS - Extranet Enabled Support of Customer Relations Based on Product State Information

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Michael Holm; Franck, Lesley Robert; Pedersen, Mogens Kühn

1999-01-01

commerce called Frontline CALS. Frontline CALS integrate three bodies of knowledge, i.e. Continuous Acquisition and Lifecycle Support, Electronic Commerce, and the Customer Consumption Chain in order to construct a concept that enhances the service quality for customers with time critical operations....... The essence of Frontline CALS is that it combines a product and a customer view with the aim of enhancing the service quality offered by the dealers in collaboration with the producer. The article further provides empirical insight from an early prototype implementation of a Web Service System intended......The electronic economy has proliferated during the past decade. Many initiatives are launched in order to support customer's interaction with the company, however, often fragmented. A more holistic approach is provided in this article. The article suggests a business model in the era of electronic...

Production-logistic system in the aspect of strategies for production planning and control and for logistic customer service

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Łukasz Hadaś

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Background: The authors made multi-dimensional review of production and logistic strategies in order to prove their coherence in shaping internal and external supply chain. The paper is concluded with definition of production-logistic system as an object of modeling in transformation of business systems of manufacturing companies. Material and methods: The paper is based on analysis of state of the art presented in the literature on the subject of production and logistics strategies. Publications of key importance were selected to identify genesis and basic assumptions of strategies and their functioning. Comparative synthesis of logistic and production strategies identified is developed with respect to authors' experience in application of predefined tools and methods characteristic for strategies identified. Results: The result of the work conducted is consolidation of production and logistic strategies according to multi-variant customer service and original definition of production and logistic system. Conclusions: Production system and logistic system can and should be treated as equal elements in context of material flows management in internal and external supply chains. Such approach enables modeling of both systems as coherent elements realizing selected strategy of customer service.     

The right stuff ... meeting your customer needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Rubin, P; Carrington, S

1999-11-01

Meeting (and exceeding) your customers' needs is a requirement for competing in the current business world. New tools and techniques must be employed to deal with the rapidly changing global environment. This article describes the success of a global supply chain integration project for a division of a large multinational corporation. A state-of-the-art ERP software package was implemented in conjunction with major process changes to improve the organization's ability to promise and deliver product to their customers.

Customization of electronic medical record templates to improve end-user satisfaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Gardner, Carrie Lee; Pearce, Patricia F

2013-03-01

Since 2004, increasing importance has been placed on the adoption of electronic medical records by healthcare providers for documentation of patient care. Recent federal regulations have shifted the focus from adoption alone to meaningful use of an electronic medical record system. As proposed by the Technology Acceptance Model, the behavioral intention to use technology is determined by the person's attitude toward usage. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to devise and implement customized templates into an existent electronic medical record system in a single clinic and measure the satisfaction of the clinic providers with the system before and after implementation. Provider satisfaction with the electronic medical record system was evaluated prior to and following template implementation using the current version 7.0 of the Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction tool. Provider comments and improvement in the Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction levels of rankings following template implementation indicated a positive perspective by the providers in regard to the templates and customization of the system.

Improving workplace expertise to meet increasing customer requirements: The impact of training

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Streumer, Jan; Calon, Marie-José

1997-01-01

This article focuses upon the training of engineers at a factory producing integrated circuits. Inadequate use of statistical process techniques by the engineers meant that the production process was not being optimised in the context of increasing customer requirements. A training needs analysis

Optimal inventory reallocation to customer orders in ceramic tile companies characterized by the lack of homogeneity in the product (LHP)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alemany, M. M. E.; Alarcon, F.; Oltra, R. F.; Lario, B. C.

2013-01-01

The lack of homogeneity in the product (LHP) is defined as the lack of uniformity required by the customer in the products. The LHP appears in companies where the final products obtained are not homogeneous, leading to the existence of different references (subtypes) of the same product. This lack of homogeneity is a problem when the client needs to be served through homogeneous units of a product and commit orders are based on planned quantities, whose final homogeneity characteristics are unknown at the time of acquiring the customer commitments. The frequent discrepancies caused by the LHP between planned homogeneous amounts and those actually obtained and available, can prevent the delivery of committed orders. To solve this problem, we propose a mathematical programming model for the reallocation of inventory in Make to Stock (MTS) ceramic tile companies characterized by the LHP that combines multiple objectives. The proposed mathematical model has been validated by its application to a real case of a ceramic company. The analysis of the obtained results indicates significant improvements in the number of orders completed on time and in sales revenue achieved. (Author) 33 refs.

Study on Customer Experience Dimension Based on Online Shopping reviews of MI’s Products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Lin

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study has selected sorts of comments about MI’s products from its customers’ as research objects, then we used the theory of Rooting to analyze those objects, and explored the Customer Experience Dimensions’ type, characteristics and the way to impact others. The results come as follows: First of all, the Customers Experience Dimensions are consisted of nine major categories defined as Value Perception Experience, Sensory Experience, Quality Assurance Experience, Parts Experience, Purchase Experience, Service Experience, Brand Comparison Experience, Compensating Experience, Brand Reliance Experience respectively. Secondly, we put these nine major categories above all to compare the conclusions with the previous research, then we analyzed and integrated them, and finally obtained seven major categories containing Purchasing Website, Product Rendering, Delivery Experience, Transaction Convenience, Safety and Security, Brand Reliance, Marketing Communications respectively. In addition, we have conducted a further investigation to draw three types about the Customer Experience named Function Experience, Purchasing and Service Experience, and Brand Experience. Last but not the least, this paper has definitely provided the basis theory of how does the Customer Experience affect the Brand Loyalty for future research, as well as guided a definite orientation.

Studying The Effect Of Brands And Internet WOM Advertisement On Customer Purchase

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Sedighimanesh

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Objectives e-commerce can be represented as any online trade and commerce via the Internet. MethodsAnalysis It should be noted that online purchase is not based on the actual experience of purchasing goods but is based on aspects such as image the qualitative information and publicizing of the product. Customers should be searched on the Internet randomly to evaluate the product and also reduce the risk of buying. So customers obtain product information before making a purchase and then perform the evaluation and diagnosis of products Findings The survey was conducted according to studying the model using a questionnaire which collected data analysis has been made in SPSS software. Improvements The results of this study show that the brand image and internet word of mouth advertisement and moderating variables price reductions customer trust mode and has a tremendous impact on customer purchase intention.

Partnership with the customer

Science.gov (United States)

Trachta, Gregory S.

This discussion will recount some historical observations about establishing partnerships with the customer. It suggests that such partnerships are established as the natural evolutionary product of a continuous improvement culture. Those are warm, ethereal terms about a topic that some people think already suffers from an excess of hot air. We will focus on some real-world activities and workplace artifacts to show there are substantive concepts behind the TQM buzzwords.

Mobile energy recording unit - the basis to improve energy productivity with principles of lean production; Mobile Energie-Erfassungseinheit (MobEE). Eine Grundlage zur Steigerung der Energieproduktivitaet auf Basis von Lean Production Prinzipien

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schnellbach, Peter [Fraunhofer IWU, Augsburg (Germany). Projektgruppe fuer Ressourceneffiziente mechatronische Verarbeitungsmaschinen; Beisbart, Ulrich [BMW Group, Muenchen (Germany). Abt. Steuerung Facility Management, Energie, Mobilitaet, Dienstleistungsmanagement; Reinhardt, Gunther [Technische Univ. Muenchen (Germany). Inst. fuer Werkzeugmaschinen und Betriebswissenschaften; RMV Augsburg (Germany). IWU Projektguppe; Schneider, Oliver

2012-10-15

Improvement of energy productivity in production processes will become more important in future. As one large customer, manufacturing industry has to take responsibility to make its contribution in this field. The mobile energy recording unit helps to create the necessary transparency to identify possible energy savings on the basis of lean production principles.

Customer familiarity with new industrial product technology and its influence on adoption: The case of De Beers diamond extraction equipment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nabbie, A.

2013-05-01

Full Text Available An investigation was conducted into the influence of industry customers familiarity with new technology on their decisions when purchasing discontinuous industrial products. This was done in the context where the supplier and customer organisations are entities in the same company. Even in this favourable context, continuous products remained successful despite a better solution being available. Literature on this close type of relationship is sparse, mostly because information on such internal processes is generally regarded as competitive. The case investigated was the DebTech division of De Beers, and their experience with products that they design and manufacture for the global diamond mining industry. Product developer and customer data from applicable projects was analysed, and interviews and observations were conducted. The results indicate that familiarity with the product technology favourably influences perceptions of newness, safety, and the ease of integration of a product. Familiarity increases customers propensity to recommend and purchase new-technology products.

Improving customer churn models as one of customer relationship management business solutions for the telecommunication industry

OpenAIRE

Slavescu, Ecaterina; Panait, Iulian

2012-01-01

Nowadays, when companies are dealing with severe global competition, they are making serious investments in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies. One of the cornerstones in CRM is customer churn prediction, the practice of determining a mathematical relation between customer characteristics and the likelihood to end the business contract with the company. This paper focuses on how to better support marketing decision makers in identifying risky customers in telecom industry by us...

Managers' perceptions of customers' satisfactions with their hospital cafeteria services.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnston, C M; Upton, E M

1991-01-01

It is important that hospital cafeterias deliver products that create customer satisfaction so that financial objectives are met. An exploratory descriptive survey of 12 selected hospital cafeterias used a self-administered questionnaire to determine how satisfied customers were with services provided. It also asked cafeteria managers to give their perceptions of their customers' relative satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the service. Principal components analysis, followed by varimax rotation, identified four underlying constructs of the 15 pre-selected foodservice characteristics used to measure relative satisfaction. A multiple regression model, controlling for country, hospital size and customer demographics, in which the dependent variable was overall rating, found that the independent variables, the underlying rating constructs--food and service--made a much greater impact on overall rating than environment and accessibility. Most cafeteria managers' predictions about their customers' satisfaction were within two standard deviations of their customers' mean scores of satisfaction. While the managers' close association with their service may have accounted for this, it does not necessarily follow that they have the power to implement policy and product improvements.

Interrelationships and consequential effects among technological innovation, service consistency, customer satisfaction and loyalty in banking

OpenAIRE

Asare Yaw Obeng; Mkhize L Peter

2017-01-01

The key to long-term success in banking is consistent improvement and delivering of quality product and or value-added service that conform to the expectations of customers. IT-innovative products/services and processes (technological innovation) facilitate these key elements of customer satisfaction and critical factors for retaining valued customers. The objective of this paper is to explore the effects of technological innovation on service consistency and the consequential effects on cust...

Direct fuel cell product design improvement

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maru, H.C.; Farooque, M. [Energy Research Corp., Danbury, CT (United States)

1996-12-31

Significant milestones have been attained towards the technology development field testing and commercialization of direct fuel cell power plant since the 1994 Fuel Cell Seminar. Under a 5-year cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy signed in December 1994, Energy Research Corporation (ERC) has been developing the design for a MW-scale direct fuel cell power plant with input from previous technology efforts and the Santa Clara Demonstration Project. The effort encompasses product definition in consultation with the Fuel Cell Commercialization Group, potential customers, as well as extensive system design and packaging. Manufacturing process improvements, test facility construction, cell component scale up, performance and endurance improvements, stack engineering, and critical balance-of-plant development are also addressed. Major emphasis of this product design improvement project is on increased efficiency, compactness and cost reduction to establish a competitive place in the market. A 2.85 MW power plant with an efficiency of 58% and a footprint of 420 m{sup 2} has been designed. Component and subsystem testing is being conducted at various levels. Planning and preparation for verification of a full size prototype unit are in progress. This paper presents the results obtained since the last fuel cell seminar.

A Method for Proposing Valued-Adding Attributes in Customized Housing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cynthia S. Hentschke

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In most emerging economies, there has been many incentives and high availability of funding for low-cost housing projects. This has encouraged product standardization and the application of mass production ideas, based on the assumption that this is the most effective strategy for reducing costs. However, the delivery of highly standardized housing units to customers with different needs, without considering their lifestyle and perception of value, often results in inadequate products. Mass customization has been pointed out as an effective strategy to improve value generation in low-cost housing projects, and to avoid waste caused by renovations done in dwellings soon after occupancy. However, one of the main challenges for the implementation of mass customization is the definition of a set of relevant options based on users’ perceived value. The aim of this paper is to propose a method for defining value adding attributes in customized housing projects, which can support decision-making in product development. The means-end chain theory was used as theoretical framework to connect product attributes and costumers’ values, through the application of the laddering technique. The method was tested in two house-building projects delivered by a company from Brazil. The main contribution of this method is to indicate the customization units that are most important for users along with the explanation of why those units are the most relevant ones.

Large Scale Product Recommendation of Supermarket Ware Based on Customer Behaviour Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Kanavos

2018-05-01

Full Text Available In this manuscript, we present a prediction model based on the behaviour of each customer using data mining techniques. The proposed model utilizes a supermarket database and an additional database from Amazon, both containing information about customers’ purchases. Subsequently, our model analyzes these data in order to classify customers as well as products, being trained and validated with real data. This model is targeted towards classifying customers according to their consuming behaviour and consequently proposes new products more likely to be purchased by them. The corresponding prediction model is intended to be utilized as a tool for marketers so as to provide an analytically targeted and specified consumer behavior. Our algorithmic framework and the subsequent implementation employ the cloud infrastructure and use the MapReduce Programming Environment, a model for processing large data-sets in a parallel manner with a distributed algorithm on computer clusters, as well as Apache Spark, which is a newer framework built on the same principles as Hadoop. Through a MapReduce model application on each step of the proposed method, text processing speed and scalability are enhanced in reference to other traditional methods. Our results show that the proposed method predicts with high accuracy the purchases of a supermarket.

Loss-Averse Retailer’s Optimal Ordering Policies for Perishable Products with Customer Returns

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xu Chen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available We investigate the loss-averse retailer’s ordering policies for perishable product with customer returns. With the introduction of the segmental loss utility function, we depict the retailer’s loss aversion decision bias and establish the loss-averse retailer’s ordering policy model. We derive that the loss-averse retailer’s optimal order quantity with customer returns exists and is unique. By comparison, we obtain that both the risk-neutral and the loss-averse retailer’s optimal order quantities depend on the inventory holding cost and the marginal shortage cost. Through the sensitivity analysis, we also discuss the effect of loss-averse coefficient and the ratio of return on the loss-averse retailer’s optimal order quantity with customer returns.

A Survey Study on Customer Experience in Banking Cash Management Products and, Participation Banking Example

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cüneyt DİRİCAN

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Banking as a safe bridge of risk management balances relation between deposit and loan. In the growing trend of interest-free banking Turkey practice, Participation Banking is working to fix the expectations of customers with reasonable solutions. For corporate customers with comprehensive cash management expectations, producing appropriate and fast solutions are important for a positive and sustainable customer experience. Cash Management covers collection of trade receivables and short -term debt payments. In this study, in the light of the financial ratios of participation banking within the banking industry, a participation bank customers' experiences and expectations in cash management products and services were evaluated with the survey methodology and its importance were also examined.

Influence of customer quality perception on the effectiveness of commercial stimuli for electronic products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Álvaro eGarrido-Morgado

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Creating and maintaining customer loyalty are strategic requirements for modern business. In the current competitive context, product quality and brand experience are crucial in building and maintaining customer loyalty. Consumer loyalty, which may be classified into cognitive loyalty and affective loyalty, is related to customers’ quality perception. Cue utilization theory distinguishes two dimensions for perceived quality, extrinsic quality –linked to the brand– and intrinsic quality –related with internal product characteristics. We propose that (i cognitive loyalty is more influenced by intrinsic product quality whereas extrinsic product quality (brand name is more salient for affective loyalty and, (ii different commercial stimuli have a differential effectiveness on intrinsic and extrinsic perceived quality. In fact, in this study, we analyze how perceived quality dimensions may influence the effectiveness of two different commercial stimuli: displays and advertising flyers. While displays work within the point of sale under time-constrained conditions where consumers are more likely to use heuristics to simplify their decisions, advertising flyers work outside of the point of sale under low time-constrained conditions, and therefore favor a more reasoned purchase decision where systematic processing will be more likely. We analyze the role of quality perception in determining the effectiveness of both these commercial stimuli for selling products that induce high purchase involvement and perceived risk. The empirical analysis focuses on computer products sold by one of Europe’s largest computer retailers and it combines scanner, observational, and survey data. The results show that both dimensions of quality perceptions moderate the influence of displays and advertising flyers on sales, but their impact is different on each commercial stimuli. Extrinsic quality perception increases to a greater extent the effect of displays due

A Financial Data Mining Model for Extracting Customer Behavior

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark K.Y. Mak

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Facing the problem of variation and chaotic behavior of customers, the lack of sufficient information is a challenge to many business organizations. Human analysts lacking an understanding of the hidden patterns in business data, thus, can miss corporate business opportunities. In order to embrace all business opportunities, enhance the competitiveness, discovery of hidden knowledge, unexpected patterns and useful rules from large databases have provided a feasible solution for several decades. While there is a wide range of financial analysis products existing in the financial market, how to customize the investment portfolio for the customer is still a challenge to many financial institutions. This paper aims at developing an intelligent Financial Data Mining Model (FDMM for extracting customer behavior in the financial industry, so as to increase the availability of decision support data and hence increase customer satisfaction. The proposed financial model first clusters the customers into several sectors, and then finds the correlation among these sectors. It is noted that better customer segmentation can increase the ability to identify targeted customers, therefore extracting useful rules for specific clusters can provide an insight into customers' buying behavior and marketing implications. To validate the feasibility of the proposed model, a simple dataset is collected from a financial company in Hong Kong. The simulation experiments show that the proposed method not only can improve the workflow of a financial company, but also deepen understanding of investment behavior. Thus, a corporation is able to customize the most suitable products and services for customers on the basis of the rules extracted.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AS CUSTOMER-ORIENTED TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE THE COMPETITIVENESS OF THE UNIVERSITY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. A. Demenenko

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The article discusses the features of formation and development of organizational culture of the University as customer-centric technology. The phenomenon of organizational culture is an essential resource for improving the competitiveness of the University, innovative development, indicators of international and research activities of the University. Stream organizational culture external (students, parents, employers and internal (students, faculty, University administration, staff/employees customers of the University determines the integration of elements of organizational culture of University in business environment of enterprises, through the involvement of graduates in professional environment. Organizational culture plays a very active role in the governance of higher education institution. At the present level of development of the market of educational services with the introduction of the national project of modernization of the education system organizational culture becomes a significant part of the formation of the University as an economic entity. It is a powerful factor in increasing the attractiveness of higher education institutions for potential consumers of educational and other services, as well as his staff. Organizational culture affects each student during his adaptation and socialization, psychological growth and learning at the University. Organizational culture and, after graduation, is in a symbiotic relationship with the employee as the object of professional activity. Potential employee during the period of study at the University “consumes” the historically established values of the University, participates in the established and developing its traditions, abides by the norms and rules of behavior, adapts to the society through various kinds of symbolism of the University, etc. In turn, the organizational culture of the University, as a basis for the development and socialization of a young man, becoming an

SOLVING CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS: A STUDY OF MULTIPLE COMMERCIAL SETTINGS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gurau Calin

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Theme: Many reports stress the importance of solving customer complaints in order to maintain customer satisfaction, but also to learn from mistakes and further improve the customer service. However, relatively few empirical studies have been conducted regarding the effect of complains handling activities on customer satisfaction and on company-customer relationships. Objectives of research: This paper attempts to identify the main elements of the complaints handling strategy that are considered essential for customers, and their effect on customer satisfaction. Literature analysis/previous research: Previous studies define a complaint as a conflict between a consumer and a business organisation in which the fairness of the resolution procedures, the interpersonal communication and behaviour, and the outcome of the complaint resolution process are the principal evaluative criteria used by the customer. In our opinion, a complaint is not necessary a conflict, however, it can create a conflict between a customer and a business organisation, when the answer to the consumer’s complaint is not satisfactory. Therefore, the way in which business organisations deal with consumer complaints can significantly influence the consumers’ level of satisfaction and loyalty. Research methodology: The empirical analysis of primary data collected through face-to-face interviews with 150 French customers provides a detailed picture of the specific elements of complains handling which are perceived as important in four different settings defined in relation to the perceived importance of the product or service, and the emergency of the experienced problem. Results: The identified elements of the complaint-handling procedure have a variable importance from one element to the other, and in the context of various complaint situations. This finding highlights the fact that, depending on each situation, the factors that will determine customer

Customer relationship management system

OpenAIRE

Selenis, Laimonas

2004-01-01

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of the biggest problems for many companies today. By analyzing history records (profiles) of its customers, organization can effectively adapt its business activity to users needs and create better products and services. Proper analysis of customer profiles can help to predict the behaviour of the customers. After grouping customer profiles by similar attributes, company can easier handle its interactions with similar users. Such group profiling c...

Method for matching customer and manufacturer positions for metal product parameters standardization

Science.gov (United States)

Polyakova, Marina; Rubin, Gennadij; Danilova, Yulija

2018-04-01

Decision making is the main stage of regulation the relations between customer and manufacturer during the design the demands of norms in standards. It is necessary to match the positions of the negotiating sides in order to gain the consensus. In order to take into consideration the differences of customer and manufacturer estimation of the object under standardization process it is obvious to use special methods of analysis. It is proposed to establish relationships between product properties and its functions using functional-target analysis. The special feature of this type of functional analysis is the consideration of the research object functions and properties. It is shown on the example of hexagonal head crew the possibility to establish links between its functions and properties. Such approach allows obtaining a quantitative assessment of the closeness the positions of customer and manufacturer at decision making during the standard norms establishment.

Assessing Customer Evaluation and Revenue Consequences of Component Sharing Across Brands in the Vertical Product Line

NARCIS (Netherlands)

P.C. Verhoef (Peter); K.H. Pauwels (Koen)

2005-01-01

textabstractComponent sharing may look great in the boardroom, but not in the showroom. Indeed, savings on R&D and production costs could be offset by a plunge in customer brand attractiveness and willingness to pay. This paper investigates the impact of component sharing on customer evaluation of

The Role of Knowledge Acquisition in Facilitating Customer Involvement in Product Development: Examining the Mediation Effect of Absorptive Capacity

Science.gov (United States)

Dahiyat, Samer E.; Al-Zu'bi, Zu'bi M. F.

2012-01-01

Knowledge management has often been linked to product development, innovation, and customisation. In particular, effective exploitation of customer knowledge, through engaging customers in a process of co-creation of products, exemplifies such a link. Accordingly, this research aims to identify those dimensions of knowledge management activities…

Using Software Product Line to improve ERP Engineering: Literature Review and Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raúl Mazo

2014-10-01

Full Text Available On the one hand, getting advantages of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP systems largely depends on their capacity to be configured and adapted to fit the customer and domain requirements. On the other hand, product line engineering (PLE is a promising approach for configuring and adapting products by means of configuration and derivation processes. While the literature and industrial experiences show the benefits of PLE methods, techniques and tools, there is still a lack of interest in addressing ERP engineering issues with the product line strategy. Objective: The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze the different ways presented in the literature to improve ERP engineering issues with the methods, techniques and tools provided by PLE. Method: To achieve that objective, we reviewed the literature and analyzed available publications. Results: This literature review analyzes six research papers at the intersection between ERP and PLE. It shows that the product line strategy can indeed be applied for ERP configuration and customization. It further shows the evolving interest on this topic and discusses existing contributions.

Customer-focused planning: Beyond integrated resource planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hastings, P.C.

1992-01-01

Integrated resource planning (IRP) evolved from the growing recognition by utilities and regulators that efforts to influence the use of electricity by customers could be more cost-effective than simply expanding the generation system. Improvements in IRP methodology are taking many different forms. One major effort is to move planning closer to the customer. Customer-focused planning (CFP) starts with customer values and uses these to drive decision-making within the utility. CFP is process- rather than product- oriented and typically operates at the bulk power system level. Options available to meet customer needs include electricity, alternative fuels, capital substitution, and end-use management or control. The customer selects the option(s) based on a value set that typically includes safety, reliability, convenience, and cost. There are also four possible levels of decision-making: the end-use; customer/power meter; transmission/distribution interface; and the utility bulk power system. Challenges of implementing CFP include identifying customer wants, needs, and values; integration of utility planning efforts; and the dynamics of the CFP process, in which costs can change with each modification of the transmission and distribution system. Two examples of recent moves toward CFP at Central Maine Power are reviewed. 2 refs., 1 fig

PRIORITIZATION OF CUSTOMER NEEDS IN HOUSE OF QUALITY USING CONJOINT ANALYSIS

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K.G. Durga Prasad

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The priority structure of customer needs in House of Quality (HOQ forms the basis for the company to make the product more attractive to customers. In the traditional Quality Function Deployment (QFD approach, the priority structure of customer needs is developed through assigning different importance weights for customer needs, which are based on QFD team members' direct experience with the customers or on the results of surveys. In this paper Conjoint analysis is adopted to obtain the priority structure of customer needs. The priority ratings of customer needs may be different for different customer segments. k-means cluster method is used to cluster customers according to their main benefits. Prior to adopt the conjoint analysis, Factor analysis is employed to reduce the size of the customer needs portion of HOQ. A case study on domestic refrigerator is presented to illustrate the proposed methodology to establish priority structure of customer needs.al unit, which would significantly improve the business.

Customer satisfaction survey to improve the European cystic fibrosis external quality assessment scheme.

Science.gov (United States)

Berwouts, Sarah; Dequeker, Elisabeth

2011-08-01

The Cystic Fibrosis European Network, coordinated from within the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, is the provider of the European cystic fibrosis external quality assessment (EQA) scheme. The network aimed to seek feedback from laboratories that participated in the cystic fibrosis scheme in order to improve services offered. In this study we analysed responses to an on-line customer satisfaction survey conducted between September and November 2009. The survey was sent to 213 laboratories that participated in the cystic fibrosis EQA scheme of 2008; 69 laboratories (32%) responded. Scores for importance and satisfaction were obtained from a five-point Likert scale for 24 attributes. A score of one corresponded to very dissatisfied/very unimportant and five corresponded to very satisfied/very important. Means were calculated and placed in a two-dimensional grid (importance-satisfaction analysis). Means were subtracted from each other to obtain gap values (gap-analysis). No attribute had a mean score below 3.63. The overall mean of satisfaction was 4.35. Opportunities for improvement enclosed clarity, usefulness and completeness of the general report and individual comments, and user-friendliness of the electronic datasheet. This type of customer satisfaction survey was a valuable instrument to identify opportunities to improve the cystic fibrosis EQA scheme. It should be conducted on a regular basis to reveal new opportunities in the future and to assess effectiveness of actions taken. Moreover, it could be a model for other EQA providers seeking feedback from participants. Overall, the customer satisfaction survey provided a powerful quality of care improvement tool.

Customer satisfaction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eskildsen, Jacob Kjær; Kristensen, Kai

2007-01-01

& Westlund, 2003) as well as the structure of the framework (Eskildsen et al., 2004). We know however very little about how the structure of the individual markets with respect to, for instance, how the transparency of products and services affects customer satisfaction. The aim of this article is to analyze...... the effect of the transparency of products and services on customer satisfaction with respect to Danish mobile phone companies, banks and supermarkets from 2004 based on the authors' experiences from the various analyses conducted within the EPSI rating initiative....

Improving dose homogeneity in head and neck radiotherapy with custom 3-D compensation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brock, Linda K.; Harari, Paul M.; Sharda, Navneet N.; Paliwal, Bhudatt R.; Kinsella, Timothy J.

1996-01-01

Purpose/Objective: Anatomic contour irregularities and tissue inhomogeneities can lead to significant radiation dose variation across complex treatment volumes. Such dose non-uniformity occurs routinely in radiation of the head and neck (H and N) despite beam shaping with blocks or beam modification with wedges. Small dose variations are amplified by the high total doses delivered (often >70 Gy) which can thereby influence late normal tissue complications as well as tumor control. We have therefore implemented the routine use of 3-D custom tissue compensators for our H and N cancer patients fabricated directly from CT scan contour data obtained in the treatment position. The capacity of such compensators to improve dose uniformity in patients with tumors of the H and N is herein reported. Materials and Methods: Between July 1992 and March 1995, 80 patients receiving H and N radiotherapy had 3-D custom compensators fabricated for their treatment course. Detailed dosimetric records have been reviewed for thirty cases to date (60 custom compensators). Dose uniformity across the treatment volume, peak dose delivery and maximum doses to selected, clinically relevant, anatomic subsites were analyzed and compared with uncompensated and wedged plans. Dose-volume histograms were generated and volumes receiving greater than 5% and 10% of the prescribed dose noted. Phantom dose measurements were performed for compensated fields using a water chamber and were compared to calculated doses in order to evaluate the accuracy of isodoses generated by the Theraplan treatment planning system. Accuracy of the fabrication and positioning of the custom compensators was verified by direct measurement. Results: Custom compensators resulted in an average reduction of dose variance across the treatment volume from 13.8% (7-20%) for the uncompensated plans to 4.5% (2-7%) with the compensators. Wedged plans were variable but on average an 8% (3-15%) dose variance was noted. Maximum doses

CUSTOMER PERCEIVED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF SYNTHETIC FIBER USING FUZZY QFD: A CASE STUDY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Golam Kabir

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The performance of the ready-made garment (RMG industry has been one of the most notable success stories of the Bangladesh economy over two decades. To meet the growing demand of synthetic yarns, Bangladesh has to import it from foreign countries which cost a substantial amount of foreign currency for the country. It is a pressing need for local manufacturers to come forward, produce quality synthetic yarn and fulfill the demand of the local market. The purpose of this paper is to present a Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment (FQFD model to indentify customer requirements and also demonstrate how these requirements can be used to prioritize the design requirements for manufacturing of synthetic yarns. In this system, Fuzzy set theory is integrated into house of quality (HOQ to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional QFD and to capture the inherent impreciseness and vagueness of customer requirements and facilitate to prioritize QFD information. Improving high priority design requirements will ultimately increase customer satisfaction and as a result customer perceived quality will soar.

Customized Care: An intervention to Improve Communication and health outcomes in multimorbidity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marsha N. Wittink

2016-12-01

Conclusions: With better communication about everyday challenges, patients and PCPs can have more informed discussions about health care options that positively influence patient outcomes. We expect that Customized Care will improve patient-PCP communication about day-to-day challenges, which can lead to better health outcomes.

Quality Quandaries: Improving a customer value stream at a financial service provider

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuiper, A.; van de Hoef, R.; Wesseling, M.; Lameijer, B.A.; Does, R.J.M.M.

2016-01-01

In the wake of the financial crisis, the financial sector had to make tremendous efforts in being more transparent and cost efficient (Blom and Kuenen 2009). As a consequence, over the last decade, various financial service providers have embraced a range of methods for improving their customer

Essays on Customization Applications in Marketing

OpenAIRE

Adiguzel, Feray

2006-01-01

The primary objective of this thesis is to develop and validate new methodologies to improve the collection of data and the effectiveness of promotion customization. This thesis contains two essays. In these essays, we search for optimal combinations of components of questionnaires to design split questionnaires and product categories to offer promotions. The first essay deals with how to improve collection of data. We focus on split questionnaires to collect data instead of using the more ty...

Customer Satisfaction Using Data Mining Approach

OpenAIRE

ORALHAN, Burcu; UYAR, Kumru; ORALHAN, Zeki

2016-01-01

Customers and products are the mainassets for every business. Companies make their best to satisfy customersbecause of coming back to their companies. After sales service related todifferent steps that make customers are satisfied with the company service andproducts. After sales service covers different many activities to investigatewhether the customer is satisfied with the service, products or not? Hence,after sales service is acting very crucial role for customer satisfaction,retention an...

Customer Intelligence Analytics on Social Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brano MARKIĆ

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Discovering needs, habits and consumer behavior is the primary task of marketing analytics. It is necessary to integrate marketing and analytical skills with IT skills. Such knowledge integration allows access to data (structured and unstructured, their analysis and finding out information about the opinions, attitudes, needs and behavior of customers. In the paper is set the hypothesis that software tools can collect data (messages from social networks, analyze the content of messages and get to know the attitudes of customers about a product, service, tourist destination with the ultimate goal of improving customer relations. Experimental results are based on the analysis of the content of social network Facebook by using the package and function R language. This language showed a satisfactory application and development power in analysis of textual data on social networks for marketing analytics.

Hedging customers.

Science.gov (United States)

Dhar, Ravi; Glazer, Rashi

2003-05-01

You are a marketing director with $5 million to invest in customer acquisition and retention. Which customers do you acquire, and which do you retain? Up to a point, the choice is obvious: Keep the consistent big spenders and lose the erratic small ones. But what about the erratic big spenders and the consistent small ones? It's often unclear whether you should acquire or retain them and at what cost. Businesses have begun dealing with unpredictable customer behavior by following the practices of sophisticated investors who own portfolios comprising dozens of stocks with different, indeed divergent, histories and prospects. Each portfolio is diversified so as to produce the investor's desired returns at the particular level of uncertainty he or she can tolerate. Customers, too, are assets--risky assets. As with stocks, the cost of acquiring them is supposed to reflect the cash-flow values they are likely to generate. The authors explain how to construct a portfolio based on the notion that a customer's risk-adjusted lifetime value depends on its anticipated effect on the riskiness of the group it is joining. They also show how this approach was used to identify the best prospects for Myron Corporation, a global leader in the personalized business-gift industry. The concept of risk-adjusted lifetime value has a transforming power: For companies that rely on it, product managers will be replaced by customer managers, and the current method of accounting for profit and loss--which is by product--will be replaced by one that determines each customer's P&L. Once adjusted for risk, those P&Ls will become the firm's key performance and operational metric.

Impact of PT. Central Proteinaprima Customer Relationship Management Towards Customer Loyalty in Sidoarjo Area

OpenAIRE

Santoso, Ivandy

2015-01-01

Customer Relationship Management is considered as an important factor that can impact customer loyalty in purchasing a product. In Sidoarjo, PT. Central Proteinaprima, a fish feed company, also competes with other companies to attract customer loyalty. This research is conducted with the aim to find out the effect of customer relationship management on customer loyalty. The data was gathered using simple random sampling by distributing questionnaires to 150 respondents in Sidoarjo...

Turn customer input into innovation.

Science.gov (United States)

Ulwick, Anthony W

2002-01-01

It's difficult to find a company these days that doesn't strive to be customer-driven. Too bad, then, that most companies go about the process of listening to customers all wrong--so wrong, in fact, that they undermine innovation and, ultimately, the bottom line. What usually happens is this: Companies ask their customers what they want. Customers offer solutions in the form of products or services. Companies then deliver these tangibles, and customers just don't buy. The reason is simple--customers aren't expert or informed enough to come up with solutions. That's what your R&D team is for. Rather, customers should be asked only for outcomes--what they want a new product or service to do for them. The form the solutions take should be up to you, and you alone. Using Cordis Corporation as an example, this article describes, in fine detail, a series of effective steps for capturing, analyzing, and utilizing customer input. First come indepth interviews, in which a moderator works with customers to deconstruct a process or activity in order to unearth "desired outcomes." Addressing participants' comments one at a time, the moderator rephrases them to be both unambiguous and measurable. Once the interviews are complete, researchers then compile a comprehensive list of outcomes that participants rank in order of importance and degree to which they are satisfied by existing products. Finally, using a simple mathematical formula called the "opportunity calculation," researchers can learn the relative attractiveness of key opportunity areas. These data can be used to uncover opportunities for product development, to properly segment markets, and to conduct competitive analysis.

Customer Value Sebagai Sumberdaya Informasi Bagi Perusahaan

OpenAIRE

Pujihastuti, Isti

2007-01-01

Buy a product or services is a process and are influenced many factors. ext. customer's satisfaction. The concept of customer satisfaction suggests strong relationship to customer value in a hierarchical model. Starting at the bottom of the hierarchy, customer learn to think about products and performances attribute. When purchasing and using a product, they learn concequence experiences, reflected in value in use and possession value, that is the next level up in the hierarchy. The top level...

Utilizing QFD model to determine quality characteristics of the products and priority needs of customers in the medical industry products (Case Study: Plasma seat product in mashhad`s Sahateb medical equipment company

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zeinab Armoun

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Quality Function Deployment (QFD as one of the quality engineering methods; originates from market study and product or service customers identification, where by determining their needs; tries to involve them in all stages of product or service development. This study uses QFD method to apply customers’ criteria in production of Coach Plasma in Mashhad`s Sahateb Company. Coach Plasma is used for healthy bloodletting. The proposed study of this paper designed and distributed a questionnaire, which includes identification & determination of customers’ needs and investigation of their satisfaction of manufactured products, while looking for technical and engineering characteristics related to their needs. The Coach Plasma costumers are categorized into two groups of local and external customers. Data collection was done based on available documents, experts opinions, structured interview with managers and questionnaire. Customers’ needs were studied in QFD teams. Collecting essential information such as needs importance degree and competitive benchmarking of customer`s needs, the weight of each need has been evaluated. In this research, House of Quality was used from first matrix of QFD leading to estimation of engineering & technical characteristics in order to enter to the quality deployment matrix. Take a look at obtained results, we could mention the role of each of these external factors in satisfaction of Sahateb Company customers and technical characteristics of the company in providing these factors and the prioritization of the customer's needs.

Y-12 product improvements expected to reduce metal production costs and decrease fabrication losses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parker, Elaine; Hassler, Morris

2004-01-01

Full text: The Y-12 National Security Complex supplies uranium metal and uranium oxide feed material that is then fabricated into fuel for research reactors around the world. Over the past two to three years, Y-12 has learned a great deal about its Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) product. The LEU is produced by taking U.S. surplus Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and blending it with depleted or natural uranium. The surplus HEU comes from dismantled U.S. weapons parts that have been declared as surplus. Those research reactors that use LEU from Y-12 are making important contributions to international nuclear non-proliferation by using LEU rather than HEU, and by helping to disposition former weapons material. We clearly understand that our customers want to keep fuel costs as low as possible. We at Y-12 are making every effort to improve efficiencies in producing the uranium through standardizing the chemical specifications as well as the product mass and dimensional qualities. This paper will discuss the new standard specification that we have proposed to existing LEU metal customers and fuel fabricators. It will also cover Y-12's progress on a new mold-design that will result in a more uniform, higher quality product that is less expensive to produce. This new product is expected to decrease overall fabrication losses by 5-10%, depending on the fabricator's process. The paper will include planned activities and the schedule associated with implementation of the new specification and product form. (author)

Custom LSI plus hybrid equals cost effectiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Friedman, S. N.

The possibility to combine various technologies, such as Bi-Polar linear and CMOS/Digital makes it feasible to create systems with a tailored performance not available on a single monolithic circuit. The custom LSI 'BLOCK', especially if it is universal in nature, is proving to be a cost effective way for the developer to improve his product. The custom LSI represents a low price part in contrast to the discrete components it will replace. In addition, the hybrid assembly can realize a savings in labor as a result of the reduced parts handling and associated wire bonds. The possibility of the use of automated system manufacturing techniques leads to greater reliability as the human factor is partly eliminated. Attention is given to reliability predictions, cost considerations, and a product comparison study.

New technologies for customizing products for people with special necessities: project FASHION-ABLE

OpenAIRE

DURÁ-GIL, JUAN V.; Ballester Fernandez, Alfredo; Cavallaro, Marco; Chiodi, Andrea; Ballarino, Andrea; Brondi, Carlo; von Arnim, Volkmar; Stellmach, Dieter

2016-01-01

Mass-customization of wearable products are offered as a higher added value to the broad public and have to compete with ready-to-wear offer. However, people with specific requirements are not covered by the current mass-customised products. This is the case of the elderly, disabled, diabetic and obese population groups when wearing textiles, clothing, footwear and textile-based orthotic goods. Further, at present, available knowledge and flexibility of production equipment and machinery of s...

Demographics-based differences in the relationship between perceived CSR and customer loyalty in the dairy products market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moisescu Ovidiu-Ioan

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the current paper is to investigate the demographics-based differences in the relationship between customers’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR and their loyalty towards brands/companies in the dairy products market, considering the socio-cultural and economic particularities of one of the largest countries of Central-Eastern Europe. For this purpose, a survey was implemented among a sample of 1461 dairy products consumers from the urban area of Romania, investigating perceived CSR and customer loyalty by using 28, and, respectively, 6 Likert-type items. Results show that customers’ loyalty towards dairy brands/companies is positively and significantly influenced by how customers perceive companies’ responsibility towards their customers, in all investigated demographic segments. However, there are other facets of perceived CSR (community development, the environment, economic success, sponsorship, public authorities in which case the relationship with customer loyalty is only significant in certain demographics-based market segments

The impact of the logistics management in customer satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ghoumrassi Amine

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Logistics management is one of nowadays tools to face economic challenges; it’s a mix of business and core activities of the organization. The supply and distribution activities integrated together form what’s known as logistics activities. The logistics activities within a business organization attempt to satisfy customers through achieving the time and location related market challenges and also through the cost of the service provided as well as the quality, taking into consideration customers needs and purchase power. Customer satisfaction is important because it provides marketers and business owners with a metric that they can use to manage and improve their businesses. Customer satisfaction is also a way to determinate the continuity of the business or of a product life by measuring the loyalty of the customers. If the customers are happy and satisfied, it will ensure the continuity of sales which means the continuity of the business. In the past customer satisfaction was more focused on requirements such as quality and reliability reducing costs of poor quality. In mid 50’s the production costs were continuously increasing, The way to maintain the company’s position within a changing market and increase profit starts by focusing on the service provided to the customer and on decreasing the cost, logistics activities became the backbone of these organizations that target the customer satisfaction while achieving competitive advantage. This study aims to show the impact of the logistics management on customer satisfaction in small and mid-sized Algerian industrial companies, by interviewing the companies managers and everybody in charge of the logistic process, the interview questions will be based on some literature review issues.

27 CFR 40.236 - Release from customs custody.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Release from customs... on Tobacco Products § 40.236 Release from customs custody. The release of tobacco products from customs custody, in bond, for transfer to the premises of a tobacco products factory, shall be in...

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS - PROFILING AND SEGMENTATION

OpenAIRE

Mircea Andrei SCRIDON

2008-01-01

In any industry, the first step to finding and creating profitable customers isdetermining what drives profitability. This leads to better prospecting andmore successful customer relationship management. Any company cansegment and profile their customer base to uncover those profit drivers usingthe knowledge of their customers, products, and markets. Or they can usedata-driven techniques to find natural clusters in their customer or prospectbase. Whatever the method, the process will lead to ...

Mass Customization: more technology, less publicity and customer satisfaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mônica Heloísa Braga Vasques

2007-11-01

Full Text Available This article refers to mass customization as an individual marketing strategy, centered on costumer's order, by means of technology, emphasizing the sensibility, the flexibility and the elasticity. Such an approach is based on the mass customization advantages and its principles of flexibility: the postponement, the resenquencing and the process standardization. Moreover, the article refers to the Hewlett-Packard, (PCs success, due to its power of integrating the designs of products, processes and supply network. We can, thus, think about the end of the advertisement. So, the old message: “Buy it now!” is not worthwhile anymore. The intelligence, nowadays, by means of technology, creates a "fatal", customized relationship with each customer. And it sells much more.

Patterns to Enable Mass-Customized Business Process Monitoring

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jochem Vonk; dr Marco Comuzzi; dr. Samuil Angelov

2012-01-01

Mass-customization challenges the one-size-fits-all assumption of mass production, allowing customers to specify the options that best fit their requirements when choosing a product or a service. In business process management, to achieve mass-customization, providers offer to their customers the

Patterns to enable mass-customized business process monitoring

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Comuzzi, M.; Angelov, S.A.; Vonk, J.; Ralyté, J,; Franch, X.; Brinkkemper, S.; Wrycza, S.

2012-01-01

Mass-customization challenges the one-size-fits-all assumption of mass production, allowing customers to specify the options that best fit their requirements when choosing a product or a service. In business process management, to achieve mass-customization, providers offer to their customers the

Enhancing customer value

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gabel, B.

1996-01-01

A discussion on how Westcoast Gas Services Inc., is striving to meet customer satisfaction was presented. A strategic business unit called storage, transportation and service is a customer-centered, energy service enterprise dedicated to providing value-added service. The company is placing emphasis on better coordination of sales and marketing activities, especially in areas of customer relationship management and product development. Deregulation was responsible for the changing marketplace. It resulted in increased competition, energy alliances and multi-fuel opportunities. Some of the ways Westcoast Gas Service plans to survive and prosper in this new world of competition were outlined. Among the ideas mentioned were consumer orientation, superior information about consumers and competitors, quick adaptation to changing market conditions, anticipation of consumer needs, and appropriate product development

9 CFR 590.930 - Imported egg products; retention in customs custody; delivery under bond; movement prior to...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 9 Animals and Animal Products 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Imported egg products; retention in..., DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE EGG PRODUCTS INSPECTION INSPECTION OF EGGS AND EGG PRODUCTS (EGG PRODUCTS INSPECTION ACT) Imports § 590.930 Imported egg products; retention in customs custody; delivery under bond...

What You Know About Customer-Perceived Quality: The Role of Customer Expectation Distributions

OpenAIRE

Roland T. Rust; J. Jeffrey Inman; Jianmin Jia; Anthony Zahorik

1999-01-01

We show that some of the most common beliefs about customer-perceived quality are wrong. For example, 1) it is not necessary to exceed customer expectations to increase preference, 2) receiving an expected level of bad service does not reduce preference, 3) rational customers may rationally choose an option with lower expected quality, even if all non-quality attributes are equal, and 4) paying more attention to loyal, experienced customers can sometimes be counter-productive. These surprisin...

Customer-Centricity for Financial Inclusion

OpenAIRE

Kilara, Tanaya; Rhyne, Elisabeth

2014-01-01

Every business depends on winning customer loyalty by providing value. This is also true when customers are from the base of the social and economic pyramid (BOP). Financial service providers who are serving or who want to serve this important customer segment need to invest in understanding the customers' needs and develop products that meet those needs. An important part of becoming cust...

FY 2002 Customer Satisfaction Survey Report

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

2002-01-01

.... In addition, the survey queried customers in six areas: Customer Service Experiences, Global Customer Service Performance, DTIC Products and Services, DTIC Online Services, User Demographics, Communication/Access and Information Requirements...

New customer services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Münster, Marie; Møller Andersen, Frits; Meza, Maria Josefina Figueroa

2011-01-01

This chapter focuses on the challenge of motivating energy service customers to make best use of available smart technologies. This can be done through economic incentives, but also through information and education, regulation and reorganisation, and by improving services or customer comfort...

Improving Quality of Shoe Soles Product using Six Sigma

Science.gov (United States)

Jesslyn Wijaya, Athalia; Trusaji, Wildan; Akbar, Muhammad; Ma’ruf, Anas; Irianto, Dradjad

2018-03-01

A manufacture in Bandung produce kind of rubber-based product i.e. trim, rice rollers, shoe soles, etc. After penetrating the shoe soles market, the manufacture has met customer with tight quality control. Based on the past data, defect level of this product was 18.08% that caused the manufacture’s loss of time and money. Quality improvement effort was done using six sigma method that included phases of define, measure, analyse, improve, and control (DMAIC). In the design phase, the object’s problem and definition were defined. Delphi method was also used in this phase to identify critical factors. In the measure phase, the existing process stability and sigma quality level were measured. Fishbone diagram and failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) were used in the next phase to analyse the root cause and determine the priority issues. Improve phase was done by designing alternative improvement strategy using 5W1H method. Some improvement efforts were identified, i.e. (i) modifying design of the hanging rack, (ii) create pantone colour book and check sheet, (iii) provide pedestrian line at compound department, (iv) buying stop watch, and (v) modifying shoe soles dies. Some control strategies for continuous improvement were proposed such as SOP or reward and punishment system.

Developing customer databases.

Science.gov (United States)

Rao, S K; Shenbaga, S

2000-01-01

There is a growing consensus among pharmaceutical companies that more product and customer-specific approaches to marketing and selling a new drug can result in substantial increases in sales. Marketers and researchers taking a proactive micro-marketing approach to identifying, profiling, and communicating with target customers are likely to facilitate such approaches and outcomes. This article provides a working framework for creating customer databases that can be effectively mined to achieve a variety of such marketing and sales force objectives.

Empirical research on Kano's model and customer satisfaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Feng-Han; Tsai, Sang-Bing; Lee, Yu-Cheng; Hsiao, Cheng-Fu; Zhou, Jie; Wang, Jiangtao; Shang, Zhiwen

2017-01-01

Products are now developed based on what customers desire, and thus attractive quality creation has become crucial. In studies on customer satisfaction, methods for analyzing quality attributes and enhancing customer satisfaction have been proposed to facilitate product development. Although substantial studies have performed to assess the impact of the attributes on customer satisfaction, little research has been conducted that quantitatively calculate the odds of customer satisfaction for the Kano classification, fitting a nonlinear relationship between attribute-level performance and customer satisfaction. In the present study, the odds of customer satisfaction were determined to identify the classification of quality attributes, and took customer psychology into account to suggest how decision-makers should prioritize the allocation of resources. A novel method for quantitatively assessing quality attributes was proposed to determine classification criteria and fit the nonlinear relationship between quality attributes and customer satisfaction. Subsequently, a case study was conducted on bicycle user satisfaction to verify the novel method. The concept of customer satisfaction odds was integrated with the value function from prospect theory to understand quality attributes. The results of this study can serve as a reference for product designers to create attractive quality attributes in their products and thus enhance customer satisfaction.

Using supply chain management to enable GIS units to improve their response to their customers' needs

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Schmitz, Peter MU

2008-09-01

Full Text Available in the manufacturing industry to manage the production of motor vehicles, electronic goods and pharmaceutical products. A supply chain consists of suppliers to a firm, the firm itself and customers at the other end of the chain. Goods flow up the chain from...

The Effect of Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty, and Brand Commitment on Word of Mouth of Wall€™s Ice Cream in Manado

OpenAIRE

Pandowo, Merinda Pandowo; Kindangen, Citra Pingkan

2014-01-01

Food and beverage products and the followed improvement in industry are familiar for common people in every part of this world. The aim of this research is to analyze the effect of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and brand commitment on word of mouth. To achieve the objectives, the research method used is causal research by using multiple regression analysis as the analytical tool. The population of this research is the consumers in Manado who ever taste wall€™s Ice cream with sample...

Customer care in the NHS.

Science.gov (United States)

Ruddick, Fred

2015-01-20

Viewing individuals in need of NHS care as customers has the potential to refocus the way their care is delivered. This article highlights some of the benefits of reframing the nurse-patient relationship in terms of customer care, and draws parallels between good customer care and the provision of high quality patient care in the NHS. It explores lessons to be learned from those who have studied the customer experience, which can be adapted to enhance the customer care experience within the health service. Developing professional expertise in the knowledge and skills that underpin good-quality interpersonal encounters is essential to improve the customer experience in health care and should be prioritised alongside the development of more technical skills. Creating a culture where emotional intelligence, caring and compassion are essential requirements for all nursing staff will improve patient satisfaction.

Improvement of customer satisfaction evaluation for quality management system and accreditation in Nuclear Malaysia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fazila Said; Noriah Ali; Siti Mariam Ibrahim

2010-01-01

Malaysian Nuclear Agency (Nuclear Malaysia) possesses seven certification of Quality Management System, namely ISO 9001:2008, and two certification of Malaysia Laboratory Accreditation Scheme, namely ISO/IEC 17025:2005. General Requirement of Standard for those two certifications needs customer satisfaction evaluation to be conducted every year. Thus, the Innovation Management Centre (IMC) undertakes improvement action to harmonise and coordinate the formulation of questionnaires in Nuclear Malaysia based on data analysis for 2009. The newly developed questionnaire that applies to all processes and laboratories that have received or awaiting certification have value addition in terms of analytical methods that are more concise, precise, simple and focus on effective action plan to enhance customer satisfaction. Methods such as Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) and Service Quality Dimension (SERVQUAL) will be used in this research. (author)

Quality and customer satisfaction: A case study in Brazil

Science.gov (United States)

Barcellos, Paulo Fernando Pinto

The dissertation deals with the case of CEEE-Companhia Estadual de Energia Eletrica, an electric power utility located in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil. Customer satisfaction with the services provided by CEEE is investigated within three groups of consumers: residential, commercial, and industrial. The purpose of the dissertation is to find answers to the following research questions: (1) What is service quality in public utilities, and particularly in an electric power company? (2) What service quality dimensions do customers want to be provided and favor the most? (3) How does the market measure service quality? (4) What should be done by companies, and particularly by an electric utility monopoly, to increase the performance of the rendered service? (5) How does this impact customer satisfaction, retention, and intention to recommend? and (6) How do we start a company-wide quality program provided that the resources are scarce and therefore priorities should be set forth? To investigate the posed questions, the study begins with an exploratory survey of CEEE's Board. The survey is followed by qualitative research of the three customer groups. After qualitative analysis of the data is concluded, questionnaires for the quantitative research, as well as hypothetical models, are developed. Dillman's "Total Design Method" is used to design the questionnaires. The basic ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Model) is used to approach customer satisfaction. Data are processed by PLS (Partial Least Squares) which follows the procedure developed at the National Quality Research Center of the University of Michigan Business School. In summary, commercial customers are the most dissatisfied with the services provided by CEEE, while residential customers are the most satisfied. To improve quality, priority should be placed on commercial customers and include efforts to improve productivity gains throughout the company. Also, CEEE's image should be

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS - PROFILING AND SEGMENTATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mircea Andrei SCRIDON

2008-01-01

Full Text Available In any industry, the first step to finding and creating profitable customers isdetermining what drives profitability. This leads to better prospecting andmore successful customer relationship management. Any company cansegment and profile their customer base to uncover those profit drivers usingthe knowledge of their customers, products, and markets. Or they can usedata-driven techniques to find natural clusters in their customer or prospectbase. Whatever the method, the process will lead to knowledge andunderstanding that is critical to maintaining a competitive edge

From Engineer-To-Order to Mass Customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Haug, Anders; Ladeby, Klaes Rohde; Edwards, Kasper

2009-01-01

customization. Second, the individual transitions from mass production and ETO to mass customization are analyzed by: relating the transition to classifications from relevant literature; describing the motivations and risks associated with the transition; and defining some of the most important transition......Purpose - Most mass customization literature focuses on the move from mass production to mass customization. However, in some literature engineer-to-order (ETO) companies are also claiming to have become mass customizers, although it can be questioned if these companies conform to popular...... definitions of mass customizers. The purpose of this paper is to ask the question: under which conditions is it reasonable to label ETO companies as mass customizers? Design/methodology/approach - First, definitions of mass customization are examined and related to ETO companies that move towards mass...

Effect of Customer Satisfaction on Company Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petr Suchánek

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The subject of this article is customer satisfaction and its impact on company performance through satisfaction with its products, including a comparison with the competition. Research was conducted in search of factors which affect customer satisfaction on the one hand and the performance of the company on the other hand. We constructed a model explaining what specific factors (affecting customer satisfaction have an impact on the performance of a company. This model can help management to better run the business and achieve higher performance. The article is based on research that focused on companies in the food industry in Czech Republic and on their customers. First, we found the financial performance of surveyed companies (based on indicators ROA, ROE and assets turnover and on this basis they have been divided on companies efficient and inefficient. Furthermore factors were identified (based on previous research of authors that have an impact on customer satisfaction (among these factors include product quality, customer requirements for product, comparison with competitive products, etc.. With the use of non-parametric statistical methods, logistic regression and discriminant analysis was analyzed, what factors affecting customer satisfaction also affect business performance.

Customer satisfaction and business excellence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Kai; Martensen, Anne; Grønholdt, Lars

The topic for this paper is the link between customer satisfaction and business performance, which makes it possible to use customer satisfaction measures as basis for creating business excellence. First, the paper presents microeconomic models for the relationship between customer satisfaction......, customer loyalty and performance, and optimal customer satisfaction is characterized which will help management choose the right quality parameters for improvement. Second, the paper describes empirical evidence that customer satisfaction measures, based on a modelling approach, have impact on economic...

Mass Customization Measurements Metrics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Kjeld; Brunø, Thomas Ditlev; Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn

2014-01-01

A recent survey has indicated that 17 % of companies have ceased mass customizing less than 1 year after initiating the effort. This paper presents measurement for a company’s mass customization performance, utilizing metrics within the three fundamental capabilities: robust process design, choice...... navigation, and solution space development. A mass customizer when assessing performance with these metrics can identify within which areas improvement would increase competitiveness the most and enable more efficient transition to mass customization....

27 CFR 44.227 - Customs procedure.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Customs procedure. 44.227..., WITHOUT PAYMENT OF TAX, OR WITH DRAWBACK OF TAX Drawback of Tax § 44.227 Customs procedure. The customs... having inspected the articles and supervised the lading thereof on the export carrier, the customs...

Emotion Analysis of Telephone Complaints from Customer Based on Affective Computing.

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, Shuangping; Dai, Yonghui; Ji, Jun; Wang, Jinzhao; Sun, Hai

2015-01-01

Customer complaint has been the important feedback for modern enterprises to improve their product and service quality as well as the customer's loyalty. As one of the commonly used manners in customer complaint, telephone communication carries rich emotional information of speeches, which provides valuable resources for perceiving the customer's satisfaction and studying the complaint handling skills. This paper studies the characteristics of telephone complaint speeches and proposes an analysis method based on affective computing technology, which can recognize the dynamic changes of customer emotions from the conversations between the service staff and the customer. The recognition process includes speaker recognition, emotional feature parameter extraction, and dynamic emotion recognition. Experimental results show that this method is effective and can reach high recognition rates of happy and angry states. It has been successfully applied to the operation quality and service administration in telecom and Internet service company.

Delivering customer solutions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bergsma, J.

1997-01-01

Convergence of the energy industries began with customer's demands for the best energy choice and value. In a converged energy market customers buy year-round home comfort, rather than gas heat or electric air conditioning. Union Gas has been facilitating cogeneration development to its customers since the mid 1980's. A brief description of the corporate context of Union Gas and Centra Gas was provided. Convergence at the retail level was discussed in detail. The essence of converge at the retail level is that an energy service provider will tailor products and services to meet a customer's specific needs for choice, value and best prices. Consequently, a residential customer will have the choice to select an environmentally preferred fuel source for home comfort, plus billing options, merchandise and repair services, all for one price, and from one utility

Influence Preceived Customer Value and Customer Satisfaction Against Customer Loyality (Case Studies in the Tourism Industry Three Star Hotel in Jepara)

OpenAIRE

Istanto, Yuni

2013-01-01

Marketing in the twenty-first century experienced remarkable changes, with the inclusion of progress in the fieldof global information technology through the internet media. In this era many products / services that arepresented through the media, so that the consumer or customer before making a purchase will create aperceived value that customers (CPV) (Kotler, 2009: 134) about the product / service to be bought. The conceptof value is one of the basic elements of the theory of marketing (Am...

Customer Satisfaction in Farmer-to-consumer Direct Marketing

OpenAIRE

Lulfs-Baden, Frederike; Spiller, Achim; Zuhlsdorf, Anke; Mellin, Matthias

2008-01-01

The importance of direct marketing for high quality farm products has increased during the past few years. This paper analyzes the impact of customer satisfaction and its driving forces for farmer-to-consumer direct marketing and is based on a customer survey among 1,537 customers in 33 organic and conventional on-farm stores in Germany. The results emphasize the role of store atmosphere, customer service and product quality as the main factors which influence customer satisfaction.

Business to business buying behaviour : An analysis and sales strategy for Aalund Customer Dialogue

OpenAIRE

Nurmi, Susanna

2012-01-01

Aalund is a Nordic market research institute that is interested in finding out more about industrial buying behaviour especially in relation to its new analyses product, Customer Dialogue. This online management tool is developed for companies that are interested in improving their business customer relations and service by measuring business customer satisfaction. Through the results of the analyses a company can discover issues that could be improven and in the end gain even more engaged bu...

27 CFR 27.185 - Customs release.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Customs release. 27.185... Distilled Spirits From Customs Custody Free of Tax for Use of the United States § 27.185 Customs release. (a) Upon receipt of appropriate customs entry and a photocopy of a permit, Form 5150.33 or previous...

Information technology innovation - a genuine driver of improving customer relationship management in romanian companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ph.D.Associate Professor Camelia Cojocaru

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Consolidating the IT field of the company represents a target for most IT responsible, nowadays. At the same time, organizations expect their IT expenditure to increase in the next decade. This paper aims to underline the new generation of information technology and how to use them to make better business decisions in managing enterprise resources and improve customer relationships. The alternative goal is to place the focus not only on developing new software but also on achieving business results, placing particular emphasis on customer relationship management. The purpose of technology is to solve practical business problems, and one of them is the necessity to understand and maintain relationships with the customers. The paper will reveal the companies’ responses to the latest dramatic changes in the informational technologies, in order to cope with the persistence of the global economic crisis and to assure increase of organizational efficiency and profit.

Customer requirement modeling and mapping of numerical control machine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhongqi Sheng

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In order to better obtain information about customer requirement and develop products meeting customer requirement, it is necessary to systematically analyze and handle the customer requirement. This article uses the product service system of numerical control machine as research objective and studies the customer requirement modeling and mapping oriented toward configuration design. It introduces the conception of requirement unit, expounds the customer requirement decomposition rules, and establishes customer requirement model; it builds the house of quality using quality function deployment and confirms the weight of technical feature of product and service; it explores the relevance rules between data using rough set theory, establishes rule database, and solves the target value of technical feature of product. Using economical turning center series numerical control machine as an example, it verifies the rationality of proposed customer requirement model.

Customized Transportation, Equity Participation, and Cooperation Performance within Logistics Supply Chains

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xudong Lin

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Customized transportation has received growing concerns by researchers and practitioners in recent years. Despite the fact that one consignor often holds partial ownership of its carrier within a supply chain, the existing interpretations behind them remain relatively unexplored. Based on the game models, we find that a simple take-or-pay contract is not likely to solve the low-efficient customized production problem, and equity participation mechanism plus simple contract may improve the cooperation performance of customized transportation. In the case of the owner-managed carrier, only when purchasing at par can it be ensured to obtain the socially optimal customization investment, but when purchasing at premium or discount, the optimal partial ownership selected by consignor cannot motivate the carrier to make the most efficient customization investment. With the optimal solutions, we also provide a theoretic foundation for calculating the optimal partial ownership and for interpreting why the interfirm share-holding ratios of the member-firms within the familial-type logistic supply chains are much larger than the ratios within the public-type logistic supply chains. Finally, our results show that the familial-type logistic supply chains may choose more efficient customized production level than public-type logistic supply chains.

Hidden foreign trade and corruption on customers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Богдан Миколайович Головкін

2017-12-01

Full Text Available According to the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA, the volume of the "shadow" economy in Ukraine is 1.1 trillion hryvnias or 45.1 % of the gross domestic product. Estimates of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine show that only 50 % of payments to the state budget comes from the clearance of goods, while the rest comprise a corruption component of 40 billion UAH for a year. Much of the large companies move non-declared goods across the state border and do not pay taxes. However, at the official level in Ukraine, it is still not accepted to talk about the servicing of the shadow foreign trade by the customs administration and the collection of corrupt rents from illegal trade in the state. Understanding the essence of the problem gives grounds to assert that the corruption risks in the work of customs are laid down in imperfect customs legislation, high tariff rates of duties and taxes, discrete powers of customs inspectors, the regime of customs procedures in the customs control zone, low level of their automation and physical contact of declarants from customs officers. In the customs case, the main type of corruption is bribery and abuse of influence related to the assistance of illegal and criminal activity in the foreign economic sphere. Subjects of foreign economic activity reduce costs and receive revenues through customs fraud or smuggling. Without corruption, this activity is impossible. On the illegal movement of goods and vehicles, smuggling and counterfeiting through the customs border, a criminal corruption business was created for all bodies and services that carry out various types of state control and law enforcement activities in the customs sphere. The most profitable are corruption schemes related to the illegal import / export of three groups of highly liquid products: tobacco products, counterfeit IT products, petroleum products, cars with foreign registration. For an independent study, illegal

Decentralized scheduling algorithm to improve the rate of production without increasing the stocks of intermediates; Zaiko wo fuyasu kotonaku seisan sokudo wo kojo saseru jiritsu bunsangata sukejuringu arugorizumu

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Takeda, Kazuhiro; Shiigi, Daisuke; Tsuge, Yoshifumi; Matsuyama, Hisayoshi [Kyushu University, Fukuoka (Japan). Department of Chemical Engineering

1999-03-10

In a factory with a multi-stage production system, push-type scheduling methods can hardly improve the production rate without increasing the stocks of intermediates. For products whose specifications are known before their orders, a pull-type scheduling method named Kanban system has been developed, and has succeeded to improve the production rate without increasing the stocks of intermediates. The Kanban system, however, is not applicable to custom-made products whose specifications are not known before their orders. In this paper, a 'Virtual Kanban (VK) system' is presented as a pull-type scheduling method which is applicable to custom-made products, and its usefulness is demonstrated by simulation of an application specific integrated circuit manufacturing facility. (author)

"The Virtual Grocery Store: A Proposal to Improve the Quality of Life for Retail Customers through a Virtual Environment"

OpenAIRE

Choi, Katrina Jones

2004-01-01

With the prevalence and integration of the Internet in our lives, online shopping has become a popular and convenient method of obtaining goods. However, there is an important experience that occurs between the customer and the product as well as the customer and the space in the actual, physical store which does not yet occur in the virtual store (Raijas, 2002). Customersâ increased use of new technology and the Internet illustrates that an incredible growth potential exists in the elect...

Empirical research on Kano’s model and customer satisfaction

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Feng-Han; Tsai, Sang-Bing; Lee, Yu-Cheng; Hsiao, Cheng-Fu; Zhou, Jie; Wang, Jiangtao; Shang, Zhiwen

2017-01-01

Products are now developed based on what customers desire, and thus attractive quality creation has become crucial. In studies on customer satisfaction, methods for analyzing quality attributes and enhancing customer satisfaction have been proposed to facilitate product development. Although substantial studies have performed to assess the impact of the attributes on customer satisfaction, little research has been conducted that quantitatively calculate the odds of customer satisfaction for the Kano classification, fitting a nonlinear relationship between attribute-level performance and customer satisfaction. In the present study, the odds of customer satisfaction were determined to identify the classification of quality attributes, and took customer psychology into account to suggest how decision-makers should prioritize the allocation of resources. A novel method for quantitatively assessing quality attributes was proposed to determine classification criteria and fit the nonlinear relationship between quality attributes and customer satisfaction. Subsequently, a case study was conducted on bicycle user satisfaction to verify the novel method. The concept of customer satisfaction odds was integrated with the value function from prospect theory to understand quality attributes. The results of this study can serve as a reference for product designers to create attractive quality attributes in their products and thus enhance customer satisfaction. PMID:28873418

A Method for Customer-driven Purchasing : Aligning Supplier interaction and Customer-driven manufacturing

OpenAIRE

Bäckstrand, Jenny

2012-01-01

The role of a purchaser has traditionally focused on acquiring standard items at the lowest possible cost. The ability to reduce unit cost has been the key performance indicator for purchasers. Most traditional purchasing strategies thus focus on optimizing this situation, focusing on the supplier interface only and not on customer value. However, for many manufacturing companies, the demand from their customers has changed lately. Not only low‐cost standard products but also customized produ...

Customer Order Decoupling Point Selection Model in Mass Customization Based on MAS

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

XU Xuanguo; LI Xiangyang

2006-01-01

Mass customization relates to the ability of providing individually designed products or services to customer with high process flexibility or integration. Literatures on mass customization have been focused on mechanism of MC, but little on customer order decoupling point selection. The aim of this paper is to present a model for customer order decoupling point selection of domain knowledge interactions between enterprises and customers in mass customization. Based on the analysis of other researchers' achievements combining the demand problems of customer and enterprise, a model of group decision for customer order decoupling point selection is constructed based on quality function deployment and multi-agent system. Considering relatively the decision makers of independent functional departments as independent decision agents, a decision agent set is added as the third dimensionality to house of quality, the cubic quality function deployment is formed. The decision-making can be consisted of two procedures: the first one is to build each plane house of quality in various functional departments to express each opinions; the other is to evaluate and gather the foregoing sub-decisions by a new plane quality function deployment. Thus, department decision-making can well use its domain knowledge by ontology, and total decision-making can keep simple by avoiding too many customer requirements.

No More "Magic Aprons": Longitudinal Assessment and Continuous Improvement of Customer Service at the University of North Dakota Libraries

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Karlene T.; Walker, Stephanie R.

2017-01-01

The University of North Dakota (UND) Libraries have developed a multi-award winning Customer Service Program (CSP) involving longitudinal assessment and continuous improvement. The CSP consists of iterative training modules; constant reinforcement of Customer Service Principles with multiple communication strategies and tools, and incentives that…

Four Easy Steps to Drastically Improve Your Phone-Based Customer Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Peller, Spencer; Beimes, Zachary

2015-01-01

Japan is renowned for impeccable customer service (as anyone who's watched an apple get wrapped up like a crown jewel in a Tokyo grocery store will tell you). The Japanese concept of kaizen (constant improvement) is a fundamental reason for this, and for the enduring success of conglomerates such as Toyota, Honda, and Sony. From afar, you may think this trait is caused by something in the waters from Mt. Fuji, but many in the know credit the work of an American engineer named W. Edwards Deming as the catalyst for this movement. If his ideas could transform a nation, there's no question they can improve the patient satisfaction rates at your practice.

Customer system efficiency improvement assessment: Supply curves for transmission and distribution conservation options

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tepel, R.C.; Callaway, J.W.; De Steese, J.G.

1987-11-01

This report documents the results of Task 6 in the Customer System Efficiency Improvement (CSEI) Assessment Project. A principal objective of this project is to assess the potential for energy conservation in the transmission and distribution (TandD) systems of electric utilities in the BPA service area. The scope of this assessment covers BPA customers in the Pacific Northwest region and all non-federal TandD systems, including those that currently place no load on the BPA system. Supply curves were developed to describe the conservation resource potentially available from TandD-system efficiency improvements. These supply curves relate the levelized cost of upgrading existing equipment to the estimated amount of energy saved. Stated in this form, the resource represented by TandD loss reductions can be compared with other conservation options and regional electrical generation resources to determine the most cost-effective method of supplying power to the Pacific Northwest. The development of the supply curves required data acquisition and methodology development that are also described in this report. 11 refs., 11 figs., 16 tabs.

Governing and Managing Customer-initiated Engineering Change – An in-depth case study of a global industrial supplier

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sommer, Anita Friis; Storbjerg, Simon Haahr; Dukovska-Popovska, Iskra

2013-01-01

or externally by for instance customers. Managing initiated engineering changes is a vital source for improving product performance and radically reducing change costs. Customer-initiated engineering change is an area growing in importance decreasing product life cycles and increasing demand for customisation....... Through an in-depth case study, this paper investigates which process and what governance setup is appropriate to manage customer initiated engineering changes, referred to as request management. The paper includes a proposal for a request management framework and a task-based iterative process model...

DEVELOPMENT OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM TO IMPROVE SERVICE QUALITY IN PT MANULIFE LIFE INSURANCE INDONESIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chriswanto Chriswanto

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Customer Relationship Management System (CRMS Development in order to improve service quality in PT. AJ. Manulife Indonesia is done by comprehending the performance model of the company and the factors that are affecting the company performance improvement and the quality of the decision to be taken by top management. System Dynamic is a method that can be used to stimulate complex systems. System Dynamics approach is expected to build a model of corporate performance that can be used to evaluate the quality of service to customers so that they can make decisions quickly and accurately. This study proves that the model is built with standard models used as changing targets and it can simulate a target quality of service to customers by delivering current and future achievement. Achievement in the future is influenced by the value of achievement of SLA, Response Time, and Defect, where the greater value of control, the greater value of the correction rate so that the GAP will be smaller. Correction rate which is determined in this study was 10%, 20%, and 30% of GAP (CB

Performance excellence: using Lean Six Sigma tools to improve the US Army behavioral health surveillance process, boost team morale, and maximize value to customers and stakeholders.

Science.gov (United States)

Watkins, Eren Youmans; Kemeter, Dave M; Spiess, Anita; Corrigan, Elizabeth; Kateley, Keri; Wills, John V; Mancha, Brent Edward; Nichols, Jerrica; Bell, Amy Millikan

2014-01-01

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a process improvement, problem-solving methodology used in business and manufacturing to improve the speed, quality, and cost of products. LSS can also be used to improve knowledge-based products integral to public health surveillance. An LSS project by the Behavioral Social Health Outcomes Program of the Army Institute of Public Health reduced the number of labor hours spent producing the routine surveillance of suicidal behavior publication. At baseline, the total number of labor hours was 448; after project completion, total labor hours were 199. Based on customer feedback, publication production was reduced from quarterly to annually. Process improvements enhanced group morale and established best practices in the form of standard operating procedures and business rules to ensure solutions are sustained. LSS project participation also fostered a change in the conceptualization of tasks and projects. These results demonstrate that LSS can be used to inform the public health process and should be considered a viable method of improving knowledge-based products and processes.

The Effect of Product Quality and Delivery Service on Online-customer Satisfaction in Zalora Indonesia

OpenAIRE

Handoko, Laras Putri

2016-01-01

The number of online transaction in Indonesia has increased in recent years with fashion products currently dominate the e-commerce market as the most frequently purchased products. The aims of this study are to analyze the effects of product quality and delivery service on online-customer satisfaction withdrawing taking online fashion retailer Zalora Indonesia as its research object. This research is causal type of research which uses primary data obtained through questionnaires and uses Mul...

ANTECEDENTS OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES

OpenAIRE

Tuleu Daniela

2015-01-01

Customer relationship management, as a process to manage customer relationship initiation, maintenance and termination to maximize the value of the relationship portfolio, is an evolving process. In recent years, the development of interactive technologies (social media) have revolutionized the interaction between firms and their customers and between customers. The impact of technology on CRM is improving ways of collecting and processing customer information and transforming communication w...

Modeling Customer's Satisfaction Behavior through Uninorms

OpenAIRE

Depaire, Benoit; Vanhoof, Koen; Wets, Geert

2006-01-01

During the last three decades, the focus of customer satisfaction research has shifted from what it was about the product or service that customers found satisfying to how and why customers became satisfied. This resulted into several models that try to explain the customer's satisfaction behaviour, among which the expectancy-disconfirmation paradigm is one of the most prominent models. This model identifies three elements which have an influence on the customer's satisfaction level: i.e perf...

Linking customer satisfaction, quality, and strategic planning

OpenAIRE

Reis, Dayr; Peña, Leticia

2000-01-01

By acknowledging and dissecting the interconnected roles of customer satisfaction, quality, and strategic planning, this paper provides an analytical framework for creating a customer-driven organization and culture. It shows how quality starts and ends with the customer. Companies that are achieving long-term continuous improvement in quality tailored to customer satisfaction possess lasting characteristics such as customer orientation, customer consciousness, and customer responsiveness. In...

Trends in the US hardwood lumber distribution industry: changing products, customers, and services

Science.gov (United States)

Urs Buehlmann; Omar Espinoza; Matthew Bumgardner; Bob. Smith

2010-01-01

Efficient and effective supply chains are the backbone of any industry, including the forest products industry. As the US secondary hardwood industry has undergone a profound transformation and large parts of the industry have moved offshore, the supply chain is adapting to these new realities. Remaining and new customers of US hardwood lumber distributors tend to be...

Mapping the Customer Experience Management Strategies for Customer Loyalty in Retail Hypermarket Jabodetabek

OpenAIRE

Jerry Marcellinus Logahan; Janita Sembiring Meliala; Iskandar Putong

2015-01-01

Today, competition in the global market has become increasingly difficult and and at the same time products and services provided by retail companies tend to be similar. So in such circumstances, customers expect not only satisfied with the products and services, but also the pursuit of the perfect shopping experience during the shopping process. The purpose of this study was to devise a customer experience management strategy at a hypermarket retailer Carrefour, Hypermart, Giant, and Lotte M...

CUSTOMER INTERACTION ON DIGITAL ECONOMY: A CASE STUDY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mateus Tavares da Silva Cozer

2007-10-01

Full Text Available On a digital economy context, customer interaction is fundamental to any company to provide competitive advantage. This research intends to give concrete answers for the sea of information complexity which is the Internet. The main case is to build a model of digital customer interaction. Customization extends beyond targeted media to include the design and delivery of the product itself. Venkatraman (1998 defines dynamic customization based on three principles: modularity, intelligence and organization. The research is based on Interaction Model and its variables are: Products, Modularity, Artificial Intelligence, Market driven organization, and virtual communities. Two organizations were studied, one with physical product and another with virtual product, and the results were shown from a qualitative research.

E-CUSTOMS PROGRAMME - NEW QUALITY OF SERVICES PROVIDED BY CUSTOMS ADMINISTRATIONS TO EUROPEAN BUSINESS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Małgorzata Czermińska

2016-09-01

Full Text Available E-Customs initiative includes a number of IT projects, organizational and legal measures. They are designed to creation of a simple and paperless environment for trade and customs, to short the duration of customs clearance and to ensure an appropriate level of security of commercial transactions. Modern customs administration must operate on the basis of advanced infrastructure in the field of information and communication technologies. Only then will it be able to provide cheaper and more efficient customs services. Therefore, the greatest challenge and the main goal of the e-Customs programme is to harmonize customs procedures and systems in the 28 Member States. The article describes the assumptions and objectives of the e-Customs, presents its genesis and evolution. Particular attention was paid to the activities that are aimed at improving the quality of customs services provided to European companies.

27 CFR 19.99 - Spirits in customs custody.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Spirits in customs custody. 19.99 Section 19.99 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX AND TRADE BUREAU... Conveyance of Spirits Or Wines on Plant Premises § 19.99 Spirits in customs custody. Spirits in customs...

Apply 3D model on the customized product color combination for the interior decoration

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Cheih-Ying

2013-03-01

The customized product color interface for the interior decoration is designed to simulate the display of various color combination sofas in the interior of the room. There are 144 color combinations of the spatial image resulted from four the interior rooms and 36 popular color sofas. The image compositing technique is adopted to appear the 144 color combinations of the spatial image on computer screen. This study tests the experience of using the interface by the questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction (QUIS). The results show that the high grade of evaluation items including wonderful, easy, satisfying, stimulating and flexible for the experience of users. Therefore, the entrepreneur who wants to display the color primarily commodity could using the customized color combination interface with 3D models for consumers to take opportunity to find the appropriate products to meet with the interior room, so as to shorten communication time between entrepreneurs and consumers.

Practices around Customization of Standard Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dittrich, Yvonne; Vaucouleur, Sebastien

2008-01-01

More and more software systems are developed by customizing a standard product that provide the major part of the functionality. The customization of Enterprise Resource Planning systems is such a product based software development practice. Little empirical research on the specificities...... of these software development practices is available. We present an empirical study on customization practices based on video recordings, interviews and a survey. The observed and reported practices challenge some of the principles of software engineering. Based on the analysis, we discuss the specificity...

Expectations and experiences of customers in formal full service ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The DINESERV gap was -0.47, which indicates that overall customers' experiences fell below customers' expectations. Restaurateurs should improve customers' experiences to reduce the DINESERV gap. The results of this study could help restaurateurs to identify areas of improvement and increase customer satisfaction.

Becoming a Hidden Champion: From Selective use of Customer Intimacy and Product Leadership to Business Attractiveness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Balas Rant Melita

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This paper sheds light on factors that support SMEs becoming market leaders on an international scale. Specifically, it studies the hidden champion type of companies, defined as SMEs that hold market leadership in narrow business segments on a regional or wider international scale. The market positioning of hidden champions is defined subjectively by CEOs in such a way that they create a high level of business attractiveness. This explorative study reveals that product leadership and customer intimacy are two blocks that build the business attractiveness of hidden champions. More specifically, the study on data from 93 niche leaders from Central and Eastern Europe showed that product leadership negatively moderates the business attractiveness-performance relationship, while the impact of the combination of product leadership and customer intimacy on the business attractiveness-firm performance relationship is not straightforward and depends on different combinations of these values.

A survey of the effects of brand value on customer satisfaction in pharmaceutical and biological industries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alipour, A.

2016-07-01

Full Text Available . The purpose of this study was to describe how companies in pharmaceutical and biological sectors can ensure their position in different markets by relying on sustainable, competitive advantages, resulting from the use of a well-defined marketing model with particular emphasis on brand improvement. As competition becomes more intense among companies and phenomena such as global marketing grow in importance, domestic industries in each country become obliged to improve their competitive advantages in order to survive from a marketing perspective. Customer satisfaction is among factors which could lead to the success and profitability of a company. The present research examined the relationship between brand value and customer behavioral intention. Accordingly, 80 questionnaires were distributed among customers, selected through random sampling in Tehran, Iran. The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS. Based on descriptive statistics, two aspects of customer behavioral intention included “product introduction” and “repeat purchase”, while two aspects of brand equity were “brand awareness” and “product introduction”. The research findings showed that factors such as “brand awareness” and “brand loyalty” directly affect customer behavioral intention and satisfaction.

Assesment of customer relationship development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dagmar Lesáková

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The focus of this paper is customer relationship marketing and its new trends. The particular goal of the presented research study was to identify and analyse the indicators of customer relationship development in human resources recruitment / leasing companies. Nine indicators have been explored: mission statement concerning customer commitment, customer attraction, customer commitment, development of customer value, understanding customer needs, goals for customer satisfaction, after sales services, measurement of customer satisfaction, complaint management. The indicators were made sequentially operational in order to translate customer relationship development into specific activities designed to increase business performance. Based on a set of customer indicators four scientific hypotheses were tested. We proved that strong customer orientation has a positive impact on business performance. Out of nine indicators, seven of them have a strong impact on business outcomes. The research confirms that business performance increases with firm size and market density, and that introduction of quality management systems improves company performance. Finally, the appropriateness of the customer relationship indicators applied in human resources recruitment companies is discussed.

Manage customer-centric innovation--systematically.

Science.gov (United States)

Selden, Larry; MacMillan, Ian C

2006-04-01

No matter how hard companies try, their approaches to innovation often don't grow the top line in the sustained, profitable way investors expect. For many companies, there's a huge difference between what's in their business plans and the market's expectations for growth (as reflected in firms' share prices, market capitalizations, and P/E ratios). This growth gap springs from the fact that companies are pouring money into their insular R&D labs instead of working to understand what the customer wants and using that understanding to drive innovation. As a result, even companies that spend the most on R&D remain starved for both customer innovation and market-capitalization growth. In this article, the authors spell out a systematic approach to innovation that continuously fuels sustained, profitable growth. They call this approach customer-centric innovation, or CCI. At the heart of CCI is a rigorous customer R&D process that helps companies to continually improve their understanding of who their customers are and what they need. By so doing, they consistently create or improve their customer value proposition. Customer R&D also focuses on better ways of communicating value propositions and delivering the complete experience to real customers. Since so much of the learning about customers and so much of the experimentation with different segmentations, value propositions, and delivery mechanisms involve the people who regularly deal with customers, it is absolutely essential for frontline employees to be at the center of the CCI process. Simply put, customer R&D propels the innovation effort away from headquarters and the traditional R&D lab out to those closest to the customer. Using the example of the luggage manufacturer Tumi, the authors provide a step-by-step approach for achieving true customer-centric innovation.

ASD Customer Satisfaction Survey

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Veterans Affairs — ASD implemented a customer satisfaction survey for our products and services. This feedback will provide a better understanding of how ASD products and services can...

Smart Metering: Learning from telecommunication providers. Innovative customized products; Beim Smart Metering von Telekommunikationsanbietern lernen. Innovative Buendelprodukte

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Isbrecht, Volker; Sombrutzki, Ingo [Putz und Partner Unternehmensberatung AG, Hamburg (Germany). Strategie- und Projektmanagement - Energiewirtschaft; Hofer, Kristina [Putz und Partner Unternehmensberatung AG, Hamburg (Germany). CRM- und Telekommunikation

2010-04-06

Deregulation in the electricity and gas metering has raised interest in smart meters. Experts estimate that in a four-person household, smart meters may reduce electricity consumption by up to 10 percent, i.e. 50 - 90 Euros, and CO2 emissions by 8.5 million tonnes, which amounts to 4 percent of the total CO2 emissions in Germany. These are ideal conditions for utilities to develop innovative products for the mass market of private consumers and to improve their competitive standing in the market by a clearly communicated advantage to both the customers and the climate. By utilizing the experience gained in the telecommunications industry, they will be able to respond quickly to impending challenges. (orig.)

Impact Of Customer Relationship Management On Customer Retention A Case Of Private Banks Of Sialkot Punjab

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nayab Bashir

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Customer relationship management is good for banking sector to increase in any economic condition and for customers to receive quality services This research check the impact of customer relationship management activities on banks customer retention in Sialkot Punjab. For the purpose of study a sampling analysis was conducted among 330 customers of selected private banks that is Habib Bank limited United Bank limited Faysal Bank limited with the help of a structured questionnaire. 316 questionnaires were usable. Statistical answers give support on the high positive relationship between customer relationship management CRM and customer satisfaction. This study exposed that there is a important positive relationship among the variables. This study exposes that the suitable execution of CRM will increases the number of customer satisfaction or make long term healthy relations with the current or potential customers through managing information or improve the performance of services that assist customer retention. Acronyms CRM Customer relationship management CS Customer satisfaction CR Customer retention Abbreviations Customer relationship management

The art of customer service.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Jeni

2007-10-01

Strategies for improving the consumer service skills of finance staff include: Hire employees who have a customer service background. Work with your human resources department to provide customer service training. Monitor new hires extensively. Offer front-end employees scripted language for situations they may face on the job. Measure the quality of customer service provided. Provide incentives for performance.

Demand Response from Day-Ahead Hourly Pricing for Large Customers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hopper, Nicole; Goldman, Charles; Neenan, Bernie

2006-01-01

Day-ahead default-service RTP for large customers not only improves the linkage between wholesale and retail markets, but also promotes the development of retail competition. The default service sets a standard for competitive alternatives and its structure shapes the types of retail market products that develop. (author)

27 CFR 26.303 - Customs inspection and release.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Customs inspection and... Customs Custody to Internal Revenue Bond § 26.303 Customs inspection and release. The customs officer.... If the spirits are in a bulk conveyance, the customs officer shall record the elements of his gauge...

CUSTOMER EQUITY:MAKING MARKETING STRATEGY FINANCIALLY ACCOUNTABLE

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Ashwin ARAVINDAKSHAN; Roland T. RUST; Katherine N. LEMON; Valerie A. ZEITHAML

2004-01-01

The article presents an overview of the literature on customer equity and how customer equity provides an opportunity for marketers to make marketing strategy financially accountable.Traditionally, Return on Investment (ROI) models have been used to evaluate the financial expenditures required by the strategies as well as the financial returns gained by them. However in addition to requiring lengthy longitudinal data, these models also have the disadvantage of not evaluating the effect of the strategies on a firm's customer equity. The dominance of customer-centered thinking over product-centered thinking calls for a shift from product-based strategies to customer-based strategies. Hence, it is important to evaluate a firm's marketing strategies in terms of the drivers of its customer equity. The article summarizes a unified strategic framework that enables competing marketing strategy options to be traded off on the basis of projected financial return, which is operationalized as the change in a firm's customer equity relative to the incremental expenditure necessary to produce the change.

RISK MANAGEMENT IN CUSTOMS CONTROL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elena Valerievna Drobot

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Customs administrations operating in the modern global economy are faced with a complex range of challenges. The prime responsibilities remain the collection of revenues and the protection of the society, but these demanding tasks must be performed effectively and efficiently, whilst at the same time facilitating the flow of legitimate goods. Risk management is a logical and systematic method of identifying, analyzing and managing risks. Risk management can be associated with any activity, function or process within the organization and will enable the organization to take advantage of opportunities and minimize potential losses. Minimization of the human factor in customs control through the implementation of non-intrusive inspection equipment can be very useful. The particularities of risk-management system (RMS implementation within customs control are discussed in the article. The authors single out the elements of the risk-management system, evaluate the effectiveness of risk-management in customs control. The main reasons for non-implementation of the risk-management system in customs control are described as well. The particular attention is paid to the benefits of customs risk management. The authors’ hypothesis is that risk management in customs control must find a balance between costs and benefits to address all risks equally. Criteria are needed to decide what constitutes an acceptable or unacceptable risk. Thus, system analysis and risk management system are the effective mechanisms for acceleration of customs clearance and improve the quality of customs control. As a conclusion, the authors give recommendations for the improvement of the effectiveness of risk management system in customs control.

Pengaruh Customer Service Quality, Customer Perceived Value, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Trust Dan Switching Barriers Terhadap Customer Retention.

OpenAIRE

Hardjanti, Adiati; Amalia, Dinna

2014-01-01

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh customer service quality, customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer trust dan switching barriers terhadap customer retention. Rancangan penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah pengujian hipotesis (testing hypotesis). Pengambilan sampel dalam penelitian ini menggunakan teknik purposive sampling dan keseluruhan hipotesis diuji dengan metode structural equation modeling yang menggunakan Amos 7.0. Data dalam peneliti...

The main new driver of customer experience in Grocery retail - the Fresh opportunity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ISMANĂ -ILISAN Camelia -Maria

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The main challenge of a modern retailer is how to delight customers in fresh products without risking profitability. To compete effectively, businesses must focus on the customer's shopping experience. To manage a customer's experience, retailers should understand what “customer experience” actually means. Customer experience includes every point of contact at which the customer interacts with the business, product, or service. Customer experience management represents a business strategy designed to manage the customer experience. This paper presents the results of a marketing research study conducted for reviewing perception versus reality of customer experience delivery in fresh products and product availability.

Customer-oriented flexitime schemes; Kundenorientierte Arbeitszeitflexibilisierung

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wiedemann, E. [Lech-Elektrizitaetswerke (LEW) AG, Augsburg (Germany)

1998-05-01

In a competitive market, only those enterprises will persist that offer not only high-quality products but quality in a very comprehensive sense as well. Total customer care is the keyword in this context and is indispensable when it comes to establishing and maintaining brand perception and loyalty. The features and benefits of products, activities and services have to be tailored to the individual needs of the target group and the individual customer. In addition, the price/performance ratio of products and services must be carefully designed so as to be acceptable to a large variety of customers. This applies both to the ``hardware`` such as product quality and efficiency, and the product-related activities such as product information and consultancy, customer service organization, reachability of service or call centers, and handling of complaints and claims. (orig./CB) [Deutsch] Im Wettbewerb kann heute nur bestehen, wer ueber das Produkt hinaus Qualitaet in einem sehr umfassenden Sinne liefert. Eine starke Orientierung am Kundeninteresse (neudeutsch: Total Customer Care) ist eigentlich selbstverstaendlich, wenn es um Aufbau, Ausbau und Pflege von Markenbeziehungen geht. Die Eigenschaften und der Nutzen von Marktleistungen muessen den individuellen Beduerfnissen und Erwartungen der Zielgruppe oder einer Einzelperson entsprechen. Darueber hinaus ist Voraussetzung, dass die angebotenen Leistungen aus der subjektiven Sicht der Kunden in einem fuer sie akzeptablen Preis-Leistungs-Verhaeltnis stehen. Dies betrifft nicht allein die `harten Fakten` wie Qualitaet oder Funktion. Es gilt auch fuer alle Leistungen rund um das Produkt, insbesondere Beratung, Erreichbarkeit, Kundenservice oder Reklamationsbearbeitung. (orig./RHM)

RESEARCH ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION DEGREE AT THE STORE MOBEXPERT PITEŞTI, IN ORDER TO IMPROVE THE SALES RESULTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

BRUTU MĂDĂLINA

2015-07-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a detailed research of customer satisfaction at the store Mobexpert Pitesti, in order to identify the main causes that led to their possible dissatisfaction. Starting from these results, the paper also aims at identifying a range of solutions designed to improve sales activity. Therefore we defined the research purpose and objectives, designed the questionnaire, defined the variables and established the research hypotheses. The sample of research consisted of the customers of the store Mobexpert Pitesti, men and women aged between 18 and over 55, with middle, high and very high incomes. A single operator collected the data inside Mobexpert Piteşti for two days, using a 3 minute questionnaire. Analyzing the research results, we conclude that there is a high degree of customer satisfaction for the store Mobexpert Piteşti, that it can be further increased by applying the following improvement directions: increasing service quality, better customer understanding, training the sales force through e-learning, motivating the sales force more effectively through a satisfactory system of salaries and bonuses and, not least, increasing the impact of marketing actions.

the customer at the final frontier of mass customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svensson, Carsten; Jensen, Thomas

2002-01-01

, some of the factors influencing the use of this business paradigm are discussed and it is argued that the customer is the major limiting factor at the final frontier of mass customisation. Until recently mass customisation have mainly been turned towards the structural design of products, whereas...... this paper argues that there might be a need for an increased focus on the fulfilment of customer needs. As a result of this manufactures will have to hone the balance of trade-offs, as the paradigm of mass customisation becomes a commodity....

27 CFR 26.261 - Action by district director of customs.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... director of customs. 26.261 Section 26.261 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX... customs. The district director of customs will direct the proper customs gauger to determine the taxable... revenue tax applicable thereto. When the rate of tax applicable to the product has been ascertained, the...

Customer Surveillance: Consumer Attitudes and Management Strategies

OpenAIRE

Plangger, Kirk Anton

2015-01-01

Due to technological advances, customer surveillance (i.e., the collection, capture, use, or storage of customers’ personal data) is becoming less expensive and more covert. Brands use these personal data that contain needs, preferences, characteristics, behavior, attitudes, or other customer attributes (i.e., market intelligence) to develop more competitive products and services. Customer surveillance also can put stress on customer relationships with brands, thus brands must conduct custome...

ORGANIZATION ETHICS REPUTATION AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY: Perception of Muslim Customer Sharia Banking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sunaryo SUNARYO

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The majority of the Indonesian population is Muslim, in which the share of Sharia Banking is only three (3 percent of the total banking market share in the country. This indicates a low participation, possibly leading to a negative perception on ethic reputation and low awareness among the Muslim communities in using sharia banking products and services. The objectives of this paper are to analyze the influence of sharia banking organization ethics reputation on Muslims customer loyalty and to analyze the role of satisfaction as a mediating effect on sharia banking organization ethics reputation on Muslims customer loyalty for the sharia banking products and services. Survey with 315 respondents in the city of Malang, Indonesia was conducted to gather information to further understand the situation, to answer the questions raised and to meet the study objectives. Purposive sampling was used to select the relevant respondents. The Structural Equation Model (SEM is used to analyze the direct and indirect relationship between sharia banking organization ethic reputation, satisfaction and Muslims customer loyalty. The findings of this study showed that all independent variables significantly influenced the dependent variable, both directly and indirectly. Satisfaction as mediating factor has a high positive support to the relationship between organization ethic reputation Muslims customer loyalty. Hence, satisfaction plays an important role to support the perception of ethic reputation of the sharia banking organization in influencing Muslim customer loyalty. In addition, the study also suggests that ethic reputation of an organization also helps in maintaining customer loyalty.

Improvement in Product Development: Use of back-end data to support upstream efforts of Robust Design Methodology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vanajah Siva

2012-12-01

Full Text Available In the area of Robust Design Methodology (RDM less is done on how to use and work with data from the back-end of the product development process to support upstream improvement. The purpose of this paper is to suggest RDM practices for the use of customer claims data in early design phases as a basis for improvements. The back-end data, when systematically analyzed and fed back into the product development process, aids in closing the product development loop from claims to improvement in the design phase. This is proposed through a flow of claims data analysis tied to an existing tool, namely Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA. The systematic and integrated analysis of back-end data is suggested as an upstream effort of RDM to increase understanding of noise factors during product usage based on the feedback of claims data to FMEA and to address continuous improvement in product development.

Make a customer, not a sale : A study on customer's perception of loyalty programs

OpenAIRE

Anderson, Louise

2013-01-01

The Swedish food retail industry is one with fierce competition, small product differentiation and increasingly disloyal customers. Consequently in order to create and retain loyal customers many of the stores offer some kind of loyalty schemes. The effectiveness of loyalty programs have been questioned, but it is proposed that in order for a loyalty program to be successful it must offer benefits that are perceived as valuable by customers. Thus the purpose of this qualitative study is to in...

Business marketing: understand what customers value.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, J C; Narus, J A

1998-01-01

How do you define the value of your market offering? Can you measure it? Few suppliers in business markets are able to answer those questions, and yet the ability to pinpoint the value of a product or service for one's customers has never been more important. By creating and using what the authors call customer value models, suppliers are able to figure out exactly what their offerings are worth to customers. Field value assessments--the most commonly used method for building customer value models--call for suppliers to gather data about their customers firsthand whenever possible. Through these assessments, a supplier can build a value model for an individual customer or for a market segment, drawing on data gathered form several customers in that segment. Suppliers can use customer value models to create competitive advantage in several ways. First, they can capitalize on the inevitable variation in customers' requirements by providing flexible market offerings. Second, they can use value models to demonstrate how a new product or service they are offering will provide greater value. Third, they can use their knowledge of how their market offerings specifically deliver value to craft persuasive value propositions. And fourth, they can use value models to provide evidence to customers of their accomplishments. Doing business based on value delivered gives companies the means to get an equitable return for their efforts. Once suppliers truly understand value, they will be able to realize the benefits of measuring and monitoring it for their customers.

ERP System for Custom Tailoring: A Case Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petr Sodomka

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The Case Study deals with the implementation and use of a global ERP system in Bernhardt Fashion CZ, which is one of the leading custom garment manufacturers in the market. The study describes the way this prestigious company has utilized a global ERP product to standardize a part of its processes as well as the areas that needed to be modified or custom adjusted. The crucial part of the study comprises a detailed description of key processes and their automation requirements that are specific in the clothing industry. Moreover, the study includes a complex evaluation of achieved benefits and significant functional improvements the company has developed by using the new system.

Utility customer issues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Downey, W.H.

1997-01-01

Customer issues affected by the restructuring of the $250 billion US electric power industry were discussed. In the past the industry's vertically integrated utilities conducted their business in protected geographic markets. With deregulation and greater competition, that industry structure will change. This presentation highlighted the strategies that Unicom is using to react to the restructuring of the electric power industry. The underlying principle is for the utility to reinvent itself to change its market orientation and focus on customer services, such as reliability, responsiveness, custom tailored solutions, and guaranteed savings over time. Attempting to become total energy providers and delivering integrated solutions to meet the needs of large industrial and commercial consumers, intensive market research, improved service and installation, and sophisticated customer retention initiatives will also have to be high on the agenda

Y-12 product improvements expected to reduce metal production costs and decrease fabrication losses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hassler, Morris E.

2005-01-01

The Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) supplies uranium metal and uranium oxide feed material for fabrication into fuel for research reactors around the world. Over the past few years, Y-12 has continued to improve its Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) product. The LEU is produced by taking U.S. surplus Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and blending it with depleted or natural uranium. The surplus HEU comes from dismantled U.S. weapons parts. Those research reactors that use LEU from Y-12 are making important contributions to international nuclear nonproliferation by using LEU rather than HEU, and helping to disposition former U.S. weapons material. It is clearly understood that the research reactor community must keep fuel costs as low as possible and Y-12 is making every effort to improve efficiencies in producing the uranium through standardizing the chemical specifications as well as the product mass and dimensional qualities. These production cost reductions allows for the U.S. to keep the LEU product price low even with the dramatic increase in the uranium enrichment and feed component market prices in the last few years. This paper will discuss a new standard specification that has been proposed to existing LEU metal customers and fuel fabricators. It will also cover Y-12's progress on a new mold-design that will result in a more uniform, higher quality product and eliminates two steps of the production process. This new product is expected to decrease fabrication losses by 5-10%, depending on the fabricator's process. The paper will include planned activities and the schedule associated with implementation of the new specification and product form. (author)

The Effect of Islamic Marketing and Corporate Image on Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty (Study on Customers of PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia Malang Branch Office)

OpenAIRE

Setyono, Langgeng

2015-01-01

The aim of this research was to examine the effect of Islamic marketing and corporate image on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. This research used explanatory research and quantitative approach. Population in this research was customers of saving product in Bank Muamalat Indonesia Malang Branch Office. Questionnaires were distributed to 138 respondents by purposive sampling technique. Data analysis technique involved path analysis and descriptive analysis. Based on calculation of p...

COMPARISON OF CRM PROGRAMS BASING ON IMPROVING CUSTOMER PROFITABILITY: USING THE AHP METHOD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dong-Fei Xue

2014-04-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we generalize the cause-related marketing (CRM methods that used by most current enterprises. And then, we probe into the difference of the effects of different types of CRM programs aiming at improving customer profitability by analytic hierarchy process (AHP. Consequently, we find out the sequencing results and provide some reference to the enterprises while performing CRM programs.

The Effort to Create Customer Engagement on Customer E_Banking (Empirical Studies on Bank BNI Regional Semarang)

OpenAIRE

Alimuddin Rizal Rivai; Wahyudi Wahyudi

2016-01-01

                    This study focused on testing the effect of variable customer value, support systems and knowledge of the customer's products to customer satisfaction and its impact on customer engagement. This study selects the object user's e-banking customers of Bank BNI Regional Semarang. The number of samples in this study of 100 respondents, using purposive sampling technique sampling. Processing data using SPSS version 16.0. Based on a statistical test using linear regression appro...

The Effect of Innovation Factors to Customer Loyalty by Structural Equation Model

OpenAIRE

M. Dachyar; Fatkhurrohman

2011-01-01

Innovation is being view from four areas of innovation, product, service, technology, and marketing. Whereas customer loyalty is composed of customer expectation, perceived quality, perceived value, corporate image, customer satisfaction, customer trust/confidence, customer commitment, customer complaint, and customer loyalty. This study aimed to investigate the influence of innovation factors to customer loyalty to GSM in the telecom companies where use of products and s...

Customer satisfaction with patient care: "Where's the Beef?".

Science.gov (United States)

Vukmir, Rade B

2006-01-01

This was an attempt to present an analysis of the literature examining objective information concerning the subject of customer service, as it applies to the current medical practice. Hopefully this information will be synthesized to generate a cogent approach to correlate customer service with quality. Articles were obtained by an English language search of MEDLINE from January 1976 to July 2005. This computerized search was supplemented with literature from the author's personal collection of peer reviewed articles on customer service in a medical setting. This information was presented in a qualitative fashion. There is a significant lack of objective data correlating customer service objectives, patient satisfaction, and quality of care. Patients present predominantly for the convenience of emergency department care. Specifics of satisfaction are directed to the timing, and amount of "caring." Demographic correlates including symptom presentation, practice style, location, and physician issues directly impact on satisfaction. It is most helpful to develop a productive plan for the "difficult patient" emphasizing communication and empathy. The current emergency medicine customer service dilemmas are a complex interaction of both patient and physician factors specifically targeting both efficiency and patient satisfaction. Awareness of these issues can help to maximize efficiency, minimize subsequent medicolegal risk and improve patient care.

Do ergonomics improvements increase computer workers' productivity?: an intervention study in a call centre.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Michael J; Bayehi, Antoinette Derjani

2003-01-15

This paper examines whether improving physical ergonomics working conditions affects worker productivity in a call centre with computer-intensive work. A field study was conducted at a catalogue retail service organization to explore the impact of ergonomics improvements on worker production. There were three levels of ergonomics interventions, each adding incrementally to the previous one. The first level was ergonomics training for all computer users accompanied by workstation ergonomics analysis leading to specific customized adjustments to better fit each worker (Group C). The second level added specific workstation accessories to improve the worker fit if the ergonomics analysis indicated a need for them (Group B). The third level met Group B requirements plus an improved chair (Group A). Productivity data was gathered from 72 volunteer participants who received ergonomics improvements to their workstations and 370 control subjects working in the same departments. Daily company records of production outputs for each worker were taken before ergonomics intervention (baseline) and 12 months after ergonomics intervention. Productivity improvement from baseline to 12 months post-intervention was examined across all ergonomics conditions combined, and also compared to the control group. The findings showed that worker performance increased for 50% of the ergonomics improvement participants and decreased for 50%. Overall, there was a 4.87% output increase for the ergonomics improvement group as compared to a 3.46% output decrease for the control group. The level of productivity increase varied by the type of the ergonomics improvements with Group C showing the best improvement (9.43%). Even though the average production improved, caution must be used in interpreting the findings since the ergonomics interventions were not successful for one-half of the participants.

Are loyal customers profitable? : customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer profitability at the individual level

OpenAIRE

Helgesen, Øyvind

2000-01-01

Customer satisfaction is supposed to be positively related to profitability. This conception may be called “the paradigm of customer satisfaction”. Nevertheless, only a few studies have examined this fundamental relationship. Thus, evidence for this “much talked about relationship” is questioned. In this working paper the focus is on the individual customer with respect to the relationships between customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer profitability at the customer level. The f...

Assessment criteria of Polish customs services effectiveness in customs clearance of foreign trade goods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katarzyna Szmyd

2013-09-01

Full Text Available In recent years Polish customs administration has undergone substantial changes not only in its structure but also in terms of tasks execution. Upon Poland’s accession to the European Union the western border was transformed into the internal border whereas the eastern border into the external border of the European Union, which led to a range of changes in the Customs Service. Those transformations made it necessary to lift customs control at border crossings from the western side. While becoming external border of the European Union Poland was obliged to adjust customs procedures to the Union standards. The abovementioned changes necessitated the need for organizational and structural transformation within the Customs Service. While performing statutory tasks the Customs Service provides safety and security for its citizens, makes it easier for reliable entrepreneurs to run their business activity as well as cares for the country’s finances. The effectiveness of the Customs Services depends to a large extent on functional infrastructure, state-of-the-art control devices, reliable communication system and innovative information solutions. It should improve the quality of the services provided, which would facilitate commodity circulation and make it possible to provide the merchandise straight to the entrepreneur, who deals with customs formalities on his or her own. Implementing new solutions – improvements by the Customs Service will provide substantial acceptance of its activities by citizens as well as entrepreneurs through providing more valuable services for the community, creating new possibilities in terms of business servic-ing by tapping into the already existing resources (effectiveness – better resource orientation, economy – better resource employment.

Customer Perceived Brand Equity in Measuring Consumption Preference towards Local and Imported Products: A serial Studies on Urban and Suburban Level of Indonesia Society in Greater Jakarta

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sri Rahayu

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This study generally aims to analyze how the preferences of Indonesian as a customer in consuming local and imported products. The specific purpose of this study is to confirm measurement tools of the customer perceived brand equity, which are product country image, culture, marketing mix, and product quality. The result of this study indicates that Indonesian consider much about the marketing mix and product quality, while not so much considering culture.The product country image on the other hand gives the opposite effect. It is significantly related but has negative impact to the customer preference. This study is expected to provide insight on factors that contribute to form customer preference, consumption, and behavior in consuming local and imported product. It is expected that this study can bring impact in increasing local product competitiveness so that local and imported product could compete equally.

Improving the Service with the Servqual Method

Science.gov (United States)

Midor, Katarzyna; Kučera, Marian

2018-03-01

At the time when economy is growing, there is strong competition in the market, and customers have increasingly higher expectations as regards quality of service and products. Under such conditions, organizations need to improve. One of the areas of improvement for an organization is to research the level of customer satisfaction. The article presents results of customer satisfaction surveys conducted by the Servqual method in a pharmaceutical service company. Use of this method allowed to improve the services provided by that pharmaceutical wholesaler, identify areas that need to be improved as soon as possible in order to improve the level of service provided.

A Determination Method of Optimal Customization Degree of Logistics Service Supply Chain with Mass Customization Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Weihua Liu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Customization degree is a very important field of mass customization. Its improvement could enhance customer satisfaction and further increase customer demand while correspondingly it will increase service price and decrease customer satisfaction and demand. Therefore this paper discusses how to deal with such issues in logistics service supply chain (LSSC with a logistics service integrator (LSI and a customer. With the establishment of customer demand function for logistics services and profit functions of the LSI and the customer, three different decision modes are proposed (i.e., customization degree dominated by LSI, customization degree dominated by customer, and customization degree decided by concentrated supply chain; many interesting findings are achieved. Firstly, to achieve customization cooperation between LSI and customer, measures should be taken to make the unit increase cost of the customized logistics services lower than a certain value. Secondly, there are differences between the optimal customization degree dominated by LSI and that dominated by customer. And in both cases, the dominator could realize more profit than the follower. Thirdly, with the profit secondary distribution strategy, the modified decentralized decision mode could accomplish the maximum profit achieved in centralized decision mode and meanwhile get the optimal customization degree.

Corporate Leverage and Product Differentiation Strategy

OpenAIRE

Arping, Stefan; Lóránth, Gyöngyi

2002-01-01

This article develops a model of the interplay between corporate leverage and product differentiation strategy. Leverage improves managerial discipline, but it can also raise customer concerns about a vendor's long-term viability. We argue that customer concerns about firm viability will be particularly pronounced when products are highly differentiated from competitors' products. In this context, optimal product differentiation strategies solve a trade-off between softening price competition...

A Case Investigation of Product Structure Complexity in Mass Customization Using a Data Mining Approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Peter; Brunø, Thomas Ditlev; Nielsen, Kjeld

2014-01-01

This paper presents a data mining method for analyzing historical configuration data providing a number of opportunities for improving mass customization capabilities. The overall objective of this paper is to investigate how specific quantitative analyses, more specifically the association rule...

Employee customer orientation in manufacturing organizations: joint influences of customer proximity and the senior leadership team.

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Hui; Subramony, Mahesh

2008-03-01

Pursuing a customer-focused strategy in manufacturing organizations requires employees across functions to embrace the importance of understanding customer needs and to align their everyday efforts with the goal of satisfying and retaining customers. Little prior research has examined what factors influence employee customer orientation in manufacturing settings. Drawing on the attraction-selection-attrition model, upper-echelons theory, and contingency theories of leadership, this study investigated the joint influences of functional roles' proximity to external customers and the senior leadership team's customer orientation on employee customer orientation. Hierarchical linear modeling results based on data obtained from 4,299 employees and 403 senior leaders from 42 facilities of a global manufacturer operating in 16 countries revealed that employees occupying customer-contact roles had the highest level of customer orientation, followed by employees occupying production roles, and then by those in support roles. In addition, there was a positive relationship between the senior leadership team's customer orientation and employee customer orientation for all 3 functional roles. The positive relationship between the senior leadership team and employee customer orientation was the strongest for employees in support roles, suggesting that lower levels of proximity to external customers may create a greater need for leadership in developing employees' customer-oriented attitudes. Copyright 2008 APA

The quest for customer focus.

Science.gov (United States)

Gulati, Ranjay; Oldroyd, James B

2005-04-01

Companies have poured enormous amounts of money into customer relationship management, but in many cases the investment hasn't really paid off. That's because getting closer to customers isn't about building an information technology system. It's a learning journey-one that unfolds over four stages, requiring people and business units to coordinate in progressively more sophisticated ways. The journey begins with the creation of a companywide repository containing each interaction a customer has with the company, organized not by product, purchase, or location, but by customer. Communal coordination is what's called for at this stage, as each group contributes its information to the data pool separately from the others and then taps into it as needed. In the second stage, one-way serial coordination from centralized IT through analytical units and out to the operating units allows companies to go beyond just assembling data to drawing inferences. In stage three, companies shift their focus from past relationships to future behavior. Through symbiotic coordination, information flows back and forth between central analytic units and various organizational units like marketing, sales, and operations, as together they seek answers to questions like "How can we prevent customers from switching to a competitor?" and "Who would be most likely to buy a new product in the future"? In stage four, firms begin to move past discrete, formal initiatives and, through integral coordination, bring an increasingly sophisticated understanding oftheir customers to bear in all day-to-day operations. Skipping stages denies organizations the sure foundation they need to build a lasting customer-focused mind-set. Those that recognize this will invest their customer relationship dollars much more wisely-and will see their customer-focusing efforts pay offon the bottom line.

Bank Customers Management System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ebubeogu Amarachukwu Felix

2015-08-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT The purpose of this project is in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Bachelor of Science Hon in Information Technology. The Design and development of this Bank customers Management system provides a more secured approach in managing bank customers information which strengthens the relationships between banks and their customers by providing the right solutions that uses a multi-level security to improve customer satisfaction. The technology used in developing this project is ASP.NET and the programming language used to develop this project is C and the IDE used is Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 professional in designing the front end while the back end uses Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

Improving product usage monitoring and analysis with semantic concepts

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Funk, M.; Rozinat, A.; Alves De Medeiros, A.K.; Putten, van der P.H.A.; Corporaal, H.; Aalst, van der W.M.P.; Yang, Jianhua; Ginige, Athula

2009-01-01

Nowadays, complex electronic products, such as DVD players or mobile phones, offer a huge number of functions. As a consequence of the complexity of the devices, customers often have problems to use such products effectively. For example, it has been observed that an increasing number of technically

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) IN PHYSICAL FITNESS CLUBS

OpenAIRE

Mahmoud Goodarzi

2011-01-01

Although customer relationship management has been identified as an important businessapproach in enterprise institutes; there is no universally accepted definition of CRM. Swiftdefined it as an enterprise approach to understanding and influencing customer behavior throughmeaningful communications in order to improve customer knowledge recovery; customeracquisition; customer retention; customer loyalty; and finally customer profitability (2).Thompson (2002) knows CRM as a business strategy to...

Performance in Service Marketing from Philosophy to Customer Relationship Management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victor Danciu

2007-08-01

Full Text Available The contribution of services to the development of every national economy is in the progress,they becoming the major contributor to the gross national product of most countries. In their turn, thecustomers become more demanding and powerful in their relationship with service providers. They askfor more and new relationship. The appropriate new marketing, known as Relationship Marketing, looksto engage the customer interactively in the many steps of creating value which is later shared betweenservice provider and customer. This requires to focus on long-term customer relationship. In order toestablish and maintain long-term relationship, the relationship marketing should understand customerexpectations, know the customers, evaluate services process, obtain a proper service quality and adequatelymanage customers’ relationships. The service customer’s is placed on an expectation range to afive dimension scale and have two levels which may be analyzed into a model of service. A stimulus forrelationship marketing performance may be the quality of service. The objective and subjective quality ofservice is essential for the service customer relationship management. In order to reach the goal ofretaining actual customers, service companies should be prepared to spot customers who leave and thenanalyze and act on information they provide. Managers should make sure the entire organization understandthe importance of keeping customers and encourage employees to pursue zero defections by tryingincentives, planning, and budgeting to defections targets. Most important, managers use defections as avehicle for continuously improving the quality and value of the service they provide to customer.

Potential benefits from improved energy efficiency of key electrical products: The case of India

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McNeil, Michael A.; Iyer, Maithili; Meyers, Stephen; Letschert, Virginie E.; McMahon, James E.

2008-01-01

The economy of the world's second most populous country continues to grow rapidly, bringing prosperity to a growing middle class while further straining an energy infrastructure already stretched beyond capacity. At the same time, efficiency policy initiatives have gained a foothold in India, and promise to grow in number over the coming years. This paper considers the maximum cost-effective potential of efficiency improvement for key energy-consuming products in the Indian context. The products considered are: household refrigerators, window air conditioners, motors and distribution transformers. Together, these products account for about 27% of delivered electricity consumption in India. The analysis estimates the minimum Life-Cycle Cost option for each product class, according to use patterns and prevailing customer marginal rates in each sector. This option represents an efficiency improvement ranging between 12% and 60%, depending on product class. If this level of efficiency was achieved starting in 2010, we estimate that total electricity consumption in India could be reduced by 4.7% by 2020, saving over 74 million tons of oil equivalent and over 246 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Net present financial savings of this efficiency improvement totals 8.1 billion dollars

Running Head: Improving Pharmacy Customer Satisfaction

Science.gov (United States)

2006-06-29

move to a prospective payment system. As part of measuring appropriate resource utilization, customer or * - patient satisfaction has been introduced...the consumer . If a patient does not like the manner in how the care was delivered [regardless of the caliber of care, they may choose to take their...features of a health care plan to patients . The rising cost of healthcare and pharmaceuticals causes many to closely Fevaluate the plans they choose

Breaking down IT silos: a "connected" way to improve customer experience and the bottom line.

Science.gov (United States)

Hallowell, Bruce; Turisco, Frances

2009-03-01

Hospitals can provide customer service like Amazon.com without purchasing new technology. Making technology interactive requires sharing patient data across applications and enhancing existing IT with decision support. Breaking down technology silos between hospital and outpatient care provider systems significantly improves efficiency, lowers costs, and speeds care delivery.

Emotion Analysis of Telephone Complaints from Customer Based on Affective Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shuangping Gong

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Customer complaint has been the important feedback for modern enterprises to improve their product and service quality as well as the customer’s loyalty. As one of the commonly used manners in customer complaint, telephone communication carries rich emotional information of speeches, which provides valuable resources for perceiving the customer’s satisfaction and studying the complaint handling skills. This paper studies the characteristics of telephone complaint speeches and proposes an analysis method based on affective computing technology, which can recognize the dynamic changes of customer emotions from the conversations between the service staff and the customer. The recognition process includes speaker recognition, emotional feature parameter extraction, and dynamic emotion recognition. Experimental results show that this method is effective and can reach high recognition rates of happy and angry states. It has been successfully applied to the operation quality and service administration in telecom and Internet service company.

Customer portfolios

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clarke, Ann Højbjerg; Freytag, Per Vagn; Zolkiewski, Judith

2017-01-01

gives managers a tool to help to cope with the dynamic aspects of the customer portfolio. Recognition of the importance of communication to the process, the development of trust and the role of legitimacy also provides areas that managers can focus upon in their relationship management processes......Purpose The purpose of this paper is to extend the discussion about customer portfolios beyond simple identification of models and how they can be used for balanced resource allocation to a discussion about how portfolios should take into account views from relationship partners and how they should...... that helps improve the understanding of how customer portfolio models can actually be applied from a relational perspective. Findings The key aspects of the conceptual framework relate to how alignment of the relationships in the portfolio is achieved. Critical to this are the interaction spaces...

INFLUENCE OF CUSTOMER VALUES AND SELF-IMAGE CONGRUITY ON CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR-BASED CRM PERFORMANCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mandy Loh

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the key dimensions of customer value (functional value, emotional value, social value, and perceived sacrifice and self-image congruity on customer-behavior based CRM performance. The study also attempts to investigate on the effect of key dimensions of customer value and self-image congruity on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. The research model for this study was adopts an integrated framework from a previous study, and adds new element into it. This study has chosen to examine the framework in the retail industry, specifically hypermarket in Malaysia, where the adoption of CRM tools is increasing incrementally. The study target on the Generation Y who believed will be the future driver of retail industry. The findings show that perceived sacrifice appears to be a critical customer perceived value in influencing the customer behavior-based CRM performance and customer satisfaction. This study show that brand loyalty would directly influence the customer behavior-based CRM performance. Perceived sacrifice and brand loyalty should be focused when trying to improve the performance of CRM.

27 CFR 479.117 - Action by Customs.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Action by Customs. 479.117... OTHER FIREARMS Importation and Exportation Exportation § 479.117 Action by Customs. Upon receipt of a... of Customs may order such inspection as deemed necessary prior to lading of the merchandise. If...

Valuable Internet Advertising and Customer Satisfaction Cycle(VIACSC)

OpenAIRE

Muhammad Awais; Tanzila Samin; Muhammad Bilal

2012-01-01

Now-a-days it is very important for the business persons to attract their target customers towards their products through valuable mode of promotion and communication. Increasing use of World Wide Web has completely changed the scenario of business sector. Customized products and services, customers preferences, @ and dot com craze have elevated the importance of internet advertising. This research paper investigates valuable internet advertising which will help to enhance the value of intern...

Customer value and financial services distribution channels

OpenAIRE

Chakrabarty, Anita

2017-01-01

This research effort seeks to investigate the co-creation of customer value in distribution channels of financial services as perceived by customers. In financial services, an in-depth investigation of customer value is necessary because of its recognised strategic imperative for competitive advantage (Woodruff, 1997). The Service Dominant Logic further demonstrates the importance of customer value as the basis of customers’ evaluations of products or service offerings (Vargo and Lusch, 2004)...

Service Learning for Improvement of Customer Service Education in LIS

Science.gov (United States)

Colón-Aguirre, Mónica

2017-01-01

This work explores the ways in which academic librarians specializing in areas related to user services consider the courses they took as part of obtaining their library and information science (LIS) degree prepared them to deal with issues of customer service in their current work. Effective customer service is a central aspect of accomplishing…

Are women more loyal customers than men?

OpenAIRE

Osselaer, Stijn; Melnyk, Valentina; Bijmolt, Tammo

2010-01-01

textabstractFor almost every company the retention of customers and the creation of customer loyalty is a huge driver of profits. If an organisation were able to increase customer retention by just 1%, such an improvement would have a significant impact on profitability.

Beyond the Voice of the Customer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Goffin, Keith; Varnes, Claus; van der Hoven, Chris

2012-01-01

are by their nature intangible. One of the most promising approaches to generating a deeper customer understanding is ethnographic market research, which adopts ideas from ethnography, the set of tools social scientists use to study tribal cultures. These techniques can provide deep customer insights......Although the importance of integrating the voice of the customer into new product development is almost universally accepted, the techniques used by many organizations to identify customers' needs have stagnated. The most commonly used techniques, focus groups and surveys (including both interviews...... and questionnaires), have significant limitations. Customers often struggle to articulate their needs in interviews, and focus groups often generate incremental ideas rather than breakthroughs. Companies in the service sector face an additional challenge, as their customers need to discuss services, which...

Mass customization threat or chance for the SME

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svensson, Carsten; Barfod, Ari

2002-01-01

Customer satisfaction is at the focus for most manufacturers and mass customization can in some markets be one of many tools used to increase the customer perceived value of a product by combining low price with extensive variation and adaptation. As a result mass customization is on the agenda i...... in many SME’s but the question is, what it will take for a SME to be successful in achieving mass customization? This paper will discuss mass customization and its influence on “built to order” SME’s. Keywords: Mass customization, industrialization, SME...

customer relationship management and performance in the paint

African Journals Online (AJOL)

CIU

2000-05-05

May 5, 2000 ... engender high level of customer loyalty on organizational products in meeting the ... Key words: Customer relationship management, Performance, ... contact, commitment and after-sales service. ... also explain that by increasing customersatisfaction, customer .... To increase the market share, organizations.

A GENERALIZATION OF TRADITIONAL KANO MODEL FOR CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renáta Turisová

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The theory of attractiveness determines the relationship between the technically achieved and customer perceived quality of product attributes. The most frequently used approach in the theory of attractiveness is the implementation of Kano‘s model. There exist a lot of generalizations of that model which take into consideration various aspects and approaches focused on understanding the customer preferences and identification of his priorities for a selling  product. The aim of this article is to outline another possible generalization of Kano‘s model.Methodology/Approach: The traditional Kano’s model captures the nonlinear relationship between reached attributes of quality and customer requirements. The individual attributes of quality are divided into three main categories: must-be, one-dimensional, attractive quality and into two side categories: indifferent and reverse quality. The well selling product has to contain the must-be attribute. It should contain as many one-dimensional attributes as possible. If there are also supplementary attractive attributes, it means that attractiveness of the entire product, from the viewpoint of the customer, nonlinearly sharply rises what has a direct positive impact on a decision of potential customer when purchasing the product. In this article, we show that inclusion of individual quality attributes of a product to the mentioned categories depends, among other things, also on costs on life cycle of the product, respectively on a price of the product on the market.Findings: In practice, we are often encountering the inclusion of products into different price categories: lower, middle and upper class. For a certain type of products the category is either directly declared by a producer (especially in automotive industry, or is determined by a customer by means of assessment of available market prices. To each of those groups of a products different customer expectations can be assigned

Customer retention and new product marketing strategies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

O'Day, T.

1997-01-01

Business strategies readily accessible for utilization by electric utility companies in the post-deregulation competitive environment were discussed. Among these strategies, shifting the company''s focus towards customers and their needs, is perhaps the most important. Utilities could use their corporate identity to capitalize on the introduction of new services. These services could include HVAC equipment servicing, building services, cable TV wiring and service and appliance repairs. The consumer would already identify the utility with some of these services and therefore, these sectors would be the most obvious areas for utility companies to enter. Attempting to make the transition into an unrelated field suggests squandering precious corporate expertise and abandonment of the corporate identity. This may not only result in failure in the new endeavour, but also in loss of credibility and customer goodwill in the old one

Design and health care: a study of virtual design and direct metal lasersintering of titanium alloy for the production of customized facial implants

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wilson Kindlein Junior

2009-11-01

Full Text Available The increase in life expectancy and a great number ofaccidents lead to higher demand for medical products,including corrective implants. Patients with tumors or traumas need to replace injured areas in order to restore their aesthetic and structural function. Currently, the available craniofacial implants present a standard geometry and seldom generate satisfactory results. Customized implants, on theother hand, are designed to conform exactly to individual patient’s anatomy. This way, the use of customized implantscan show beneficial effects to the patient and the surgicalteam. In this study, the design and manufacturing of customized implant prior to surgery were described. Implant shape and functional requirements were established by digitaldata based on CT-scans and mirroring operations. The designprocess of customized mandible prosthesis is illustrated as well as its manufacturing process (direct metal laser sinteringand quality control. Laser sintering process and its constraints for the production of customized implants in titanium alloy(Ti-6Al-4V with complex geometry and internal structures are reported.

Customer driven marketing strategy of LIC international in Bahrain: a product specific study

OpenAIRE

Pillai, Rajasekharan; Rao, M S; Thampy, Jaik; Peter, Jerrin

2011-01-01

Abstract Marketing of service product requires a slightly different strategy owing to the idiosyncratic nature of service items. The present study explores the customer oriented marketing strategy of LIC International in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The approach of the study was exploratory and personal interview was conducted to contribute major input source to the research. The company has been following a different marketing strategy in the study area different from the conventional approach in...

The strategic value of customer profitability analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Raaij, van E.M.

2005-01-01

Purpose – The aim of the paper is to show how intelligence emanating from customer profitability analysis (CPA) can help improve strategic marketing planning. Insights into the profitability of individual customers, as well as the distribution of profitability across the customer base, can lead to

Can a customer relationship management program improve recruitment for primary care research studies?

Science.gov (United States)

Johnston, Sharon; Wong, Sabrina T; Blackman, Stephanie; Chau, Leena W; Grool, Anne M; Hogg, William

2017-11-16

Recruiting family physicians into primary care research studies requires researchers to continually manage information coming in, going out, and coming in again. In many research groups, Microsoft Excel and Access are the usual data management tools, but they are very basic and do not support any automation, linking, or reminder systems to manage and integrate recruitment information and processes. We explored whether a commercial customer relationship management (CRM) software program - designed for sales people in businesses to improve customer relations and communications - could be used to make the research recruitment system faster, more effective, and more efficient. We found that while there was potential for long-term studies, it simply did not adapt effectively enough for our shorter study and recruitment budget. The amount of training required to master the software and our need for ongoing flexible and timely support were greater than the benefit of using CRM software for our study.

Determining customer satisfaction in anatomic pathology.

Science.gov (United States)

Zarbo, Richard J

2006-05-01

Measurement of physicians' and patients' satisfaction with laboratory services has become a standard practice in the United States, prompted by national accreditation requirements. Unlike other surveys of hospital-, outpatient care-, or physician-related activities, no ongoing, comprehensive customer satisfaction survey of anatomic pathology services is available for subscription that would allow continual benchmarking against peer laboratories. Pathologists, therefore, must often design their own local assessment tools to determine physician satisfaction in anatomic pathology. To describe satisfaction survey design that would elicit specific information from physician customers about key elements of anatomic pathology services. The author shares his experience in biannually assessing customer satisfaction in anatomic pathology with survey tools designed at the Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Mich. Benchmarks for physician satisfaction, opportunities for improvement, and characteristics that correlated with a high level of physician satisfaction were identified nationally from a standardized survey tool used by 94 laboratories in the 2001 College of American Pathologists Q-Probes quality improvement program. In general, physicians are most satisfied with professional diagnostic services and least satisfied with pathology services related to poor communication. A well-designed and conducted customer satisfaction survey is an opportunity for pathologists to periodically educate physician customers about services offered, manage unrealistic expectations, and understand the evolving needs of the physician customer. Armed with current information from physician customers, the pathologist is better able to strategically plan for resources that facilitate performance improvements in anatomic pathology laboratory services that align with evolving clinical needs in health care delivery.

Customer Loyalty and Customer Relationship Management

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Pengwei; Li, Min; Jiao, Xiaojing; Zhou, Ruijin

The contemporary company attaches great importance to marketing relationship and customer relations is the core of this relationship. Further, customer satisfaction and loyalty is the core of the customer relationship management. Sometimes, high customer satisfaction causes low profit because enterprises do not realize that strengthening the loyalty of the aimed customer is the key of customer relationship management.

The Customer Interaction Process: Managing Customer, the Service Encounter and Service Recovery

OpenAIRE

TANASE, George Cosmin

2013-01-01

Service interactions are next to customer relationships one of the primary value processes of a service provider. Due to the fact that in service situations value is created via the throughput of the customer through the service production process, and this throughput is realized in service interactions, these interactions are one of the major value drivers of a service firms value. As one of a service providers primary value processes, the interaction process aims at managing the service int...

True or False Customer Engagement Behaviour

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Haurum, Helle; Beckmann, Suzanne C.

2014-01-01

Customers’ engagement behaviours are considered an important source of value to the company. So far, the discussion has mainly been conceptual and focused on the company’s perspective. By adopting the customer’s perspective we investigated how customers perceive their service relationship...... encounters with a company, using in-depth interviews. We found the following key factors driving and explaining customers’ engagement behaviours: (1) transactions matter and inconsistent engagement behaviours are a reality, (2) mundane products and services are still highly relevant for customers, and (3......) different degrees of customer experience alignment with services and products exist. Moreover, the distinction between true and false engagement behaviours we suggest indeed is relevant and we could establish their mediating capabilities....

The Application of Waiting Lines System in Improving Customer Service Management: The Examination of Malaysia Fast Food Restaurants Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Ismail, Zurina; Shokor, Shahrul Suhaimi AB

2016-03-01

Rapid life time change of the Malaysian lifestyle had served the overwhelming growth in the service operation industry. On that occasion, this paper will provide the idea to improve the waiting line system (WLS) practices in Malaysia fast food chains. The study will compare the results in between the single server single phase (SSSP) and the single server multi-phase (SSMP) which providing Markovian Queuing (MQ) to be used for analysis. The new system will improve the current WLS, plus intensifying the organization performance. This new WLS were designed and tested in a real case scenario and in order to develop and implemented the new styles, it need to be focusing on the average number of customers (ANC), average number of customer spending time waiting in line (ACS), and the average time customers spend in waiting and being served (ABS). We introduced new WLS design and there will be prompt discussion upon theories of benefits and potential issues that will benefit other researchers.

Pencapaian Tujuan Perusahaan dengan Customer Relationship Management pada Industri Jasa Telekomunikasi

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adhi Nugroho Chandra

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Marketing strategies can include forms of chosen marketing communications and marketing mix strategy. A company should maintain its consumer loyalty in a long term to prevent its product being “lost” due to lack of after-sales service. Thus, a concept of customer relationship management appears to improve customer satisfaction. Furthermore, for the company, implementing a strong customer relationship management will support other business units so that the corporate goal to gain profit will be achieved, considering the function of CRM is part of marketing unit the as spearhead of the company. CRM development cannot beseparated from technology. Therefore the use of CRM combined with web-based technology will result in a line of the target of a company, especially a telecommunication company, to face competition.

Mass Customization - Threat or Chance for the SME

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svensson, Carsten

2000-01-01

Customer satisfaction is at the focus for most manufacturers and mass customization can in some markets be one of many tools used to increase the customer perceived value of a product by combining low price with extensive variation and adaptation. As a result mass customization is on the agenda i...... in many SME's but the question is, what it will take for a SME to be successful in achieving mass customization? This paper will discuss mass customization and its influence on "built to order" SME's....

27 CFR 28.291 - Customs Form 6001.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Customs Form 6001. 28.291... OF THE TREASURY LIQUORS EXPORTATION OF ALCOHOL Proceedings at Ports of Export Customs Gauge § 28.291 Customs Form 6001. When spirits or wines are gauged as required in §§ 28.264, 28.285, or 28.290, the...

A framework for managing customer knowledge in retail industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sourav Mukherji

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Customer knowledge can be a critical source of competitive advantage in retail business. In this theoretical paper, three sources of customer knowledge are identified in the retail environment, namely customer transactions, customer interactions and customer communities of practice. Lessons for managing these three types of knowledge are derived from knowledge management practices of knowledge intensive service industries such as management consulting and software development. Finally, a decision model premised on consumer behaviour and purchase characteristics is proposed. The model would enable retailers to focus their knowledge management efforts to leverage the potential of customer knowledge for both productivity benefits and product innovation.

Application of Product Configuration Systems in Engineering Companies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristjansdottir, Katrin

Engineering companies increasingly face the challenge of delivering highly customized products where time, cost, and quality are critical factors. To provide customized products efficiently, a product configuration system (PCS) is commonly implemented. A PCS supports the product configuration...... process, which consists of activities that involve gathering requirements from customers and generating the required product-related specifications. The application of a PCS in the industry has revealed benefits that include shorter lead-times, improved quality of specifications and products, and lower...... overall cost of the product. However, many PCS projects do encounter failure. With an increased focus on customized and personalized products, there is a growing need for the automation of business processes. For this reason, a PCS is becoming an essential part of IT strategy in different industries...

Improving Balance in TBI Using a Low-Cost Customized Virtual Reality Rehabilitation Tool

Science.gov (United States)

2016-10-01

quality of life , and cognitive function. This design will allow us to assess the efficacy of IQ as a customizable balance treatment in TBI, and to...VANJHCS.  As  such,  we  have   explored  additional  avenues  and  are   working  closely  with  the  dedicated...AWARD NUMBER: W81XWH-14-2-0150 TITLE: Improving Balance in TBI Using a Low-Cost Customized Virtual Reality Rehabilitation Tool PRINCIPAL